


The Outside

by fadagaski



Series: Green Valley High [1]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst with a Happy Ending, Foster Care, Gen, Gun Possession, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced School Shootings, Orphans, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Harassment, Teen Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-05-17 14:39:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5874475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadagaski/pseuds/fadagaski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>American High School AU. No, really.</p><p>
  <b>On HIATUS until September.</b>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Polski available: [Po drugiej stronie](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12864462) by [loirgris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loirgris/pseuds/loirgris)



> From a prompt on Tumblr by silver-89 for an amusement park AU. Somehow it became this.
> 
> Huge and epic thanks to yourdykeinshiningarmor and infinitefuriosa for betaing this beast. You are amazing and I'm so grateful!
> 
>  **STORY WARNINGS! This fic contains non-graphic references to sexual violence, child abuse and sexual assault, kidnapping, starvation, and murder by gunshot to the head.** If you're in any way unsure about the content, message me (either here via comment, or on Tumblr) and I'll discuss things with you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's someone sitting in Furiosa's normal seat on the bus to school.

Furiosa is studying the off-cream ceiling when the small body curled next to her suddenly convulses. Bathed in a cold sweat, Toast scowls at her nightmare, hands fisting the covers tight. She keens behind clenched teeth. It's a sound from _then_ that haunts Furiosa every night Toast creeps into her bed. Turning on her side, Furiosa scoots back from the vicious stab of Toast's pointy feet. 

“Toast,” she says, not loud or quiet but firm. “It's a dream. Toast. Wake up.”

She does, on a garbled scream, fingers hooking like claws at phantoms in the air over her. Blinking wet eyes, Toast takes a shuddery breath. Furiosa very carefully does not touch her. In the weeks since they've been at The Greenhouse, Furiosa has learned to be wary of eight-year-old punches to her face. 

“Did I wake you up?” Toast whispers. Her eyes are huge in her face, accentuated by the short crop of her dark hair. 

“No.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.” 

Toast breathes a small sigh and curls up in the bend of Furiosa's body, resting her head on the half arm tucked into its cotton sleeve. “You should sleep,” she murmurs, already drifting that way herself.

Staring down at the sweet face, youthfully plump in the cheeks, Furiosa contemplates the horrors of her own restless sleep with ice-cold dread. There's no way she could go back to that – the gun in her right hand and the explosion of blood and bone and brain matter and the crystal pure agony of her left arm and always, always _him_.

Bad enough to suffer it once a night. She's not brave enough, not like Toast. Furiosa has never been brave enough. 

No. She will stay awake, and watch over Toast's sleep with raw stinging eyes. It's only an hour until the alarm goes anyway.

*

Breakfast is even more tense and silent than it's been since they first came to live with their foster parents. Furiosa mows mechanically through her bacon and eggs as the clock _tick-tocks_ on the wall behind her. Opposite, Angharad sips a glass of water; there's an omelette in front of her, barely touched. Capable nibbles delicately on her waffle and watches Angharad out the corner of her eye. Toast is half-asleep in her cereal, while Dag coaxes little Cheedo into trying a sausage. 

There is an elephant in the room and no one is looking at it.

Outside, the sputter-grumble of an ancient engine breaks the morning stillness.

“Bus is here!” Mel calls from the bay window facing the front yard lit pale by the early spring sun. She looks up from her newspaper when Furiosa collects her coat – a dark green woollen military-style castoff from Mel, so not really hers (the same way all her clothes, her bed, her food aren't hers and could be taken from her at any point; the infuriating threat claws at her throat like knives). 

Madi comes out of the kitchen with a cup of coffee in hand, her steel-grey hair spilling out from under a colourful wool hat. She opens the door for Furiosa, who nods an awkward thanks, turning to say a final goodbye to her sisters. They are perched on rustic wooden chairs around a rustic wooden table, its dents and scratches hidden under a tablecloth the colour of leaves through sunlight, in a kitchen that could be from a fairy tale for how quaint and _normal_ it is. 

Angharad does not look up from her uneaten breakfast. Her hand rests on the pronounced curve of her belly underneath her baby-blue bathrobe. Furiosa can't help but stare, shocked dumb as much now as every morning in the last nine weeks. The words stick in her throat.

“Don't be late,” Mel scolds.

Angharad should be catching a bus too, like Furiosa. 

“We'll call you,” Madi murmurs. 

She should be getting on the bus and going to school and making friends. Trying out for a sports team and decorating her locker. These normal teen things that Furiosa has seen since she moved here, joined Green Valley High – Angharad should be doing them, eighth grade and innocent of the world's horrors.

Would be doing them. If Furiosa had been faster. Had been less afraid.

“Furiosa. We'll call. As soon as we get back.” Madi nods encouragingly when Furiosa drags her eyes away from the table, away from the five girls (all she has in the world – and the dark seed in their midst). 

The bus honks its horn. 

Furiosa leaves: a rod of iron down her spine, a vice around her throat.

*

Nettie-the-driver – apparently a 'friend' of Mel's, though Furiosa has never seen any hint of warmth in the woman – flicks her vivid blue eyes up briefly as Furiosa stomps up the bus steps. She has a travel mug of steaming coffee in her gloved hand, and pulls a healthy chug while the doors hiss shut and Furiosa finds a seat. She's always first – her foster mothers live far outside Green Valley, thus the hideously early bus schedule – so she always gets a pick of the seats. Always heads straight for the back, next to the emergency exit with an unobstructed view of the other seats, and – when they finally board – the other students.

Except today.

Furiosa freezes at the sight of a man sat at the back of the bus, curled so deep into a worn leather jacket that his ample beard has tucked beneath the collar. He doesn't move, or make a sound, though she can feel his eyes tracking her as she chooses a place nearest the front door (the second-best option; there's no way she's going to sit on the same bench as him). As the engine grumbles into gear, Furiosa's shoulders ratchet almost to her ears and stay there through the lurch as the machine groans into motion. She loathes anyone behind her – strange men riding school buses most of all.

She turns sideways, tucks her legs against her chest, heavy leather boots dripping mud and frost onto the cracked seat. Nettie gives her a vicious look in the rearview mirror that Furiosa blithely ignores. The cold from the foggy window seeps through her coat – their coat, the coat she has been loaned for who knows how long – and chills in shivery goosebumps all along the shaved exposure of her neck. But she can see the stranger, out the corner of her eye, and that makes the discomfort worth it.

He doesn't do anything but sit there, rocking with the bus – which, for Furiosa, is actually worse. She hates the constant anxiety hooked like thick talons into her gut. There's no relaxation for her, because there are strangers everywhere: at school, on the street, even at 'home' with her foster mothers. (It took three days before she learnt their names, arriving unexpectedly as she did.) At least if the hairy stranger did something, it could warrant the paranoia.

Plus, her mind keeps drifting to Angharad, to her journey today, and that's a mental place Furiosa doesn't want to go. Watching the stranger gives her something else to think about. 

The bus sways on, past wide fields of dark ploughed soil, barns and farmhouses scattered haphazardly along the road's edge. There's a light mist just starting to burn away in the sun's golden glow. If she was out there, Furiosa knows she would smell fresh earth and cleanness and green. It was the first thing she really actively noticed, when she came here, desperate and dark: the scent of life. Starkly different to that old musty attic, where the most she could hope for was a whiff of gasoline off the highway through a crack in the window pane.

And better that than the stench from the princess bedrooms: perfume and sweat and worse. 

The stranger shifts on the seat, leather jacket creaking as he buries himself deeper, coughs somewhere in all that beard hair. Furiosa's brow furrows as she studies him. He's got a bag next to him: not some flash branded thing the jocks at Green Valley High toss around like they're football stars instead of farmers' sons, but a worn duffel, maybe even military. It's as beat-up as his jacket. The hair is really excessive, wild tufts of it covering half his face and his beard covering the other half; he looks like a caveman. It's impossible to guess his age or his reason for being on the bus. Doesn't stop Furiosa from trying. 

(Angharad is probably in the bathroom vomiting whatever she managed to swallow at breakfast. Madi will make her ginger tea. In a few hours, when the youngest three are at school or pre-school, they'll get in the car – Madi and Mel and Angharad and Capable – and make the long drive on the highway.)

Nettie stomps the brakes hard enough to unbalance Furiosa, who slams a boot down to keep herself on the seat. They share a mutual glare. The doors squeak open to allow the first of the students to climb aboard. There's four of them – Furiosa never bothered to learn their names, though the girl with the sparkly pink mittens is in her homeroom class. They stutter to a halt next to Nettie, staring first at Furiosa sitting at the front, then at the stranger. Furiosa sneers and turns away. 

“Move it,” Nettie growls, revving the engine in warning. The four shuffle to their regular spots somewhere in the middle of the bus. As soon as the wheels are in motion, they bend their heads together to whisper. Furiosa is not in the least surprised; it happened the first time she boarded the bus, and every time since. 

The bus fills with a dozen students as the little township of Green Valley grows larger in the window. They all doubletake at Furiosa sitting in a different spot, at the stranger lurking at the back. They all huddle together, whispering and giggling and _staring_. The smell of engine oil twines among coffee breaths and wet jeans. Furiosa rests her head back against the window, lets the cold crawl over her scalp and pretends it's enough to numb her brain.

The final collection is just outside town. Jaw clenching, Furiosa straightens in her seat, pulls her leg in close to her chest. The doors swing open. Heavy boots clomp up the steps and there is the wide leering grin Furiosa learnt to hate on the very first day. 

“Howdy campers!” Slit bellows. He's greeted with varying levels of enthusiasm. His eyes scan to the back of the bus – looking for Furiosa; the tension rockets up her spine as she watches him frown at the stranger – and then sweep over the other students. All the girls are sat in pairs already, avoiding his eye. Furiosa isn't among them. When he spots her, and his eyes light up with wicked glee, she wishes she was. He looms over her, grinning. “Saving a space for me?”

“Fuck off.”

“You know I love it when you talk dirty to me.” He swings into the seat behind hers, rests his arms on the back of her chair so he is leaning right into her face. “Knew you were a cougar. God I love an older woman.” He licks his lips, so close to her she can feel the wet heat of his breath. Her stomach curdles. 

“Hey,” Nettie snarls from the driver's seat. Slit tosses her a lazy look. “Keep a civil tongue in your head, boy, or you'll be walking to school.”

“Whatever.” He yawns, and slumps back, out of Furiosa's space at last. “You're too old, be like fucking a zombie,” he mutters. Nettie's hands squeeze the wheel tight as the bus pulls away from the curb. The two girls behind Slit warily eye the top of his curly head, but for once he doesn't do anything else. 

Furiosa lets out a shaky, shaky breath. 

They pull up at the squat little high school ten minutes before the bell. Furiosa bolts off as soon as the doors open, grateful to be out of the humid interior. Her hips ache from sitting cramped and tense for so long. 

She doesn't hang around on the front steps like the others, the ones who live in town or have come in from the farms on the other side of the valley. Bag slung over one shoulder, she marches inside, passing the various stupid cliques that form in every stupid high school: cheerleaders and geeks and goths and jocks. They all stare at her, with her prosthetic arm and shaved head and eyes that have _seen_.

Behind her, Slit has joined up with his football friends, the Warboys, crowing loud and obnoxious to each other. 

The school doors shut out the cold and noise behind her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Furiosa receives a phone call that shakes her to the core.

She could have forgotten the stranger on the bus, she would have, if his locker hadn't been under hers. It isn't until she's trying to collect her books for Spanish and Math that Furiosa realises, spies him crouched down, jiggling the lock with jerky movements. Hunched over as he is, he looks even more like a caveman than before. While students saunter by chatting to each other on their way to class, Furiosa waits around the corner – no way she's going to her locker while he's there. 

The tardy bell rings and hall monitors start clearing the corridor. Furiosa can hear him grunting with frustration. Finally the lock gives. The little orange door swings open. 

“Time for class, young man,” calls Mr Milligan, the history teacher, from the staffroom door – kind of ironically, Furiosa thinks, since he looks younger than the hairy guy kneeling on the lino. The stranger _growls_ and slams the locker shut. He stalks off with his bag slung over his left shoulder, jacket creaking in the silent hallway. Mr Milligan catches Furiosa's eye. “You too, Miss Jobassa.”

She goes, if only to avoid having to explain herself. Spanish proves actually impossible without her books. Furiosa spends the entire lesson looking out the window at the bare trees and scudding clouds and the teacher doesn't say anything at all. 

(Angharad is probably in the waiting room in the city, holding Capable's hand, the swell of her belly only too obvious on such a slight teenage frame.)

She would have forgotten him, if he wasn't also in her Math class. Being late starters, the both of them are squashed into the last two tables at the back, in front of the ancient heater pumping out stale smelling air that makes her nauseous. Furiosa is more surprised than anything else: the boys at this school grow fluff on their chins and call it a beard – yet this hairy _man_ is sat in her _Junior_ class. 

But then, she's been kept back a year. Who's to say he hasn't? Furiosa isn't going to ask. 

She resolutely ignores him, and he her, and the both of them the teacher: all of them existing in their own personal bubbles, drifting across each other's paths but never interacting. 

It's the same in the hallway. The lunch bell rings and students dribble past her, on their phones and with their friends and all of them blind to her. Sometimes Furiosa wonders if she's finally gotten her childhood wish, turned invisible so no one can hurt her – five years too late.

And then the Warboys stroll along walking four abreast, whooping and laughing and leering, and Slit makes absolutely sure to bellow, “Cougar! One o'clock behind the gym, right?” and receives raucous high-fives. 

Furiosa stares into the black depths of her locker gritting her teeth against rising bile. Her right hand grips the cold metal door and aches with memory.

*

Her jeans pocket vibrates just before she walks into American Lit. It takes a second for her to realise what it is – she's never owned a phone, and who would call her? No one even knows her name – and then she's ducking into a corner, scrambling to yank it out. 

“Hello? Angharad?”

“ _It's Madi._ ”

“Where is she? Is she okay?”

“ _She's fine. Calm down, alright? She's fine. She's fine._ ”

Furiosa sags against the wall, bag dislodged down to her elbow. She lets it _thunk_ on the floor. “Let me talk to her.”

“ _Furiosa, wait – just wait a second. Angharad – she's made a decision. You might not like that decision but it's hers to make, not yours. Do you understand?_ ”

Swallowing hard, Furiosa stares down the empty hallway at the cold spring sunlight streaming through the far windows, whispers, “Let me talk to her.”

The line hisses and scuffles as the phone is passed. 

“Angharad?”

“ _Hi,_ ” comes the quiet voice. Furiosa's knees sag; she forces them straight. Licks her lips and lets out a shuddery breath she hopes Angharad can't hear.

“How was it?”

“ _They were really nice. They – um. We – we talked a lot. About – the baby and about J – the father._ ”

Alarm trickles down her spine like ice water; Furiosa stands up from the wall. “You're getting rid of it. Right? It's not too late. Tell me they'll let you get rid of it.”

Running wheels on tarmac. Highway traffic. The radio twanging something country. 

Furiosa grips the phone tight enough to creak. Her throat is filled with acid.

“Angharad. Tell me you're getting rid of it.”

“ _It's alive. I've felt it kick. It's – I've got a human being living in me. I – I can't kill it._ ”

“Angharad, listen to me. Okay? Listen. You don't owe him anything. Nothing's going to happen to you, I won't let it. Just get rid of it okay?”

Angharad sniffs, and her voice is warped when she speaks. “ _M-maybe I could've earlier. But. I've felt it move. I've seen it on the ultrasound thing. I – I'm its mother. Furiosa, I'm someone's **mom**._ ”

“Listen to yourself!” Furiosa barks; it bounces off the lockers. “You're talking about Joe's baby, okay? _Joe's_.”

There's more hissing and scuffling as the phone is passed off. Furiosa grinds her teeth together.

“ _We'll talk about this later,_ ” says Mel. Angharad is crying in the background.

“What the fuck are you thinking?” Furiosa snarls. “She's a child for fuck's sake. You can't let her make this decision.”

“ _Later,_ ” Mel says firmly, and the phone goes dead.

Furiosa stares at the lump of plastic in her hand. Her ears are buzzing. The hallway seems watery, surreal, as she looks one way and then the other. She feels sick to her stomach. Her mind is looping the one refrain – _she's going to keep Joe's baby, she's going to keep Joe's baby, she's going to keep Joe's baby_. Her jaw aches. 

_She's going to keep **Joe's baby**._

In one violent movement she launches her phone down the length of the hallway. It smashes against the far windows, falls in bits to the floor. It's not enough, it's not enough. She pivots, swings her leg, kicks the lockers as hard as she can, once, twice, again, again. Her breath catches, chokes in her throat. A ragged scream rips from somewhere deep and molten inside. 

Doors open along the length of the hallway. Curious noises drift along its edges. Furiosa grabs her bag and runs, doesn't look back.

*

She took up smoking as rebellion. Joe wanted them pure little princesses; she was determined to be anything but. Furiosa convinced Rick to supply her, and made sure her room stank of them. Joe ripped that room apart trying to find where she kept them while she sat on the 'naughty step' and laughed.

One day he smacked her across the face instead of the ass, dragged her up to the attic and left her there. She was fifteen. 

Mel supplies her now. It was one of the first things Furiosa asked for when she arrived, wet and footsore and half-dead from cold. A cigarette and a chance to see her sisters. Please. Just to see them. 

They let her in and she hasn't left. Apparently the state gave up trying to keep her away.

Furiosa goes through half a pack sitting on the bleachers bordering the football field. She stares unseeing at the glutinous mud chewed up by a hundred studded boots. It's bitterly cold, a northern wind whipping down the length of the valley, bringing thick clouds and the threat of rain. She left her coat inside. Her skin prickles with goosebumps, the tips of her earns burn with cold but at least – at least she can't tell whether she's shaking from cold or shock or something else. 

The bell goes, distantly, for final period, and then for the end of school. Students stream out like an oil slick, colourful jackets against the tarmac-grey sky. Furiosa can barely move for the cold. All her limbs feel frozen solid. The stump inside her prosthetic is actually numb where it touches the plastic, and she knows she'll pay for that later with phantom aches and stabbing pains. 

But there's Nettie's bus, engine grumbling louder than the others. Furiosa takes a last drag of her cigarette, stabs it out on the metal bench and flicks it down the gap. If she's lucky, Slit will have detention, so she won't have to deal with him when her nerves are jangling so high.

Down the steps, hunching into the thin protection of her hoodie, Furiosa pauses at the sound of voices. Male voices. 

One day she won't freeze at the sound of men talking out of sight. One day her heart won't leap up her gullet. Her knees won't lock, her gut won't clench. She'll be able to walk past without a second thought.

But not today. Today Furiosa creeps along the bleachers' lowest seats, treading carefully in the treacherous mud. She smells the huddle of bodies before she sees them: too much aftershave and deodorant wafting down on the wind.

It's the Warboys, the football team. She doesn't know the others, but Slit she recognises, his back to her, weight cocked on one hip and arms folded. 

“You're gonna give it to him,” Slit says. “Either you're gonna give it cos you wanna, or cos we're gonna beat it off you. Which is it gonna be?”

Furiosa bites her lip, scowling. She can't see who it is they've cornered – someone shorter than them, could be a Freshman, could be a girl – but Furiosa suddenly doesn't give a fuck. She is tired of it. She is tired of Slit strutting around like he's king rooster, tired of his leers and his pointless fucking innuendos, tired of letting him think he can get away with it just so she can keep the peace, can _stay_.

“I'm gonna count to five,” Slit says.

There's a shovel not three feet away from her, where the groundstaff have been filling in mole hills. 

“One.”

She picks it up – one hand, yes, but she's naturally right-handed, and she's gained a bit of muscle on that side since the operation. 

“Two.”

Takes a deep breath to steady herself.

“Three.”

The Warboys shuffle, anxious and excited. Furiosa steps around the side of the bleachers, into the sightline of the Warboys furthest from her. They glance up, frowning in confusion, elbowing each other to check what they're seeing is right.

“Four.”

“Hey!” Furiosa calls and hoists the shovel high. They turn as one, hive-mind. Furiosa snarls at them. “Five.” And swings.

They scatter, fucking cowards, sliding in the mud. Slit falls on his ass, has to be dragged out by his friends. “Fucking bitch!” he splutters, face spattered with dirt, pants coated in it. Furiosa takes a menacing step towards him and he balks, flees. 

She spits after them. The shovel drops by degrees til the blade is digging into the ground. Her breath comes in sharp gasps, desiccating the soft flesh of her throat. Lips twitching, manic elation roils somewhere near her diaphragm. It bubbles out as a little hysterical giggle.

“You okay?” a rough voice rumbles. Furiosa flinches, shovel yanked high again as she spins. 

The hairy stranger steps back, hands held up, eyeing the shovel warily. 

Furiosa blinks. Her arm trembles and she lets her weapon down once more. “I'm fine,” she says, satisfyingly firm. She scans him once, head to toe, for injury. “You?”

He gives a small thumbs up with one hand. 

Shaking off the dregs of the adrenaline, Furiosa leans the shovel against the back of the benches. The last of the Warboys vanishes into school. For a second, her heart leaps into her throat – what if they tell, what if she's thrown out, what if she has to _leave_ – but she forces the thought aside. They were threatening a student. They would be in just as much trouble as her. They won't risk telling. She's safe.

Probably.

“What did they want?” she asks.

The man keeps his distance as she moves, keeps facing her with his hands lowered but clearly visible. She appreciates it. 

“My jacket,” he grumbles.

Furiosa eyes it critically. It looks like it's held together with hope and a prayer; one sleeve is half missing, and there are ugly stitches criss-crossing it where it's been mended. “Why?”

The stranger shrugs. Frowns. “You were on the bus.” He shoots a look in the direction the Warboys went, expression indecipherable. 

“And it's going to leave without us,” Furiosa says. Backs away from him into the open field and full strength of the wind. 

“I'm walking.”

She stares at him. “It's six miles to where I live,” she says. And he was on the bus before her.

He follows her out, hands in his pockets, head ducked against the cold. Nods once at the shovel propped against the bleachers. “Thanks,” he says, and starts walking.

Furiosa watches him go. “Fool,” she mutters.

Nettie honks the horn.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angharad's pregnancy unsettles the whole house.

There's a welcoming committee gathered on the front porch: Madi perched sideways on the wicker chair folding laundry, Mel leaning her hip against the railing, watching a flock of Canada geese arrow south.

Furiosa comes to a slow stop at the bottom of the stairs. It feels like someone's poured lead into the marrow of her bones. The front door is wide open but somehow uninviting.

“She's sleeping,” Madi says. Biting her lip, Furiosa turns and sits on the second step. She knocks and scrapes her boots, dislodging hunks of wet mud. It's quiet on the porch, air tense and heavy like a thunderhead on the horizon, as she picks at the laces one-handed. Furiosa eases off her boots and places them on the porch behind her under the protection of the roof, where a half dozen other small muddy pairs also rest. 

For a long minute she sits twisted there, in the fluffy socks she has been bought and the hoodie she has been given and looks at those muddy boots. 

“Furiosa,” Mel says overhead, staring at her with yellowed eyes when she turns. She gestures to the space next to Madi. “Sit.” 

Gut churning, Furiosa makes herself move. Her socked feet make no noise on the wooden steps, as though she were a wandering ghost. She sits on the very edge of the wicker chair with her elbows on her knees and swallows hard against a spurt of hot jagged lava; it sizzles into a throbbing lake under her ribs.

There's an ashtray on the railing, and a packet of cigarettes. Mel takes one and pulls a lighter from her cardigan pocket. The _click-click_ fizzles under Furiosa's skin. Mel takes a long drag and lets the smoke steam out her nostrils. “Want one?” She offers the box.

“Mel,” Madi warns without looking up from folding laundry into different piles. 

“No kids here,” Mel says. 

Furiosa shakes her head. She's still jittery from the half dozen she smoked at school.

“Where's Angharad?” she asks softly. The pit of lava is there, broiling her organs to blackened husks, but she can be civil. Has to be.

“Sleeping,” Mel says. “Rough day for them both.”

“Her and the baby?” spits out of Furiosa's mouth before she can stop it.

Mel shoots her a sour look. “Her and Capable.” 

Furiosa swallows. Opens her mouth – but she doesn't know what to say. Not in a way that will change their minds. Not in a way that will keep her here with her sisters. 

Mel takes another long drag of her cigarette. “It's her decision,” she says. 

Fingers digging into the meat of her leg, she reminds herself to simmer down. “She's thirteen. How can she know what she wants? How can she be allowed to decide?”

“Honey,” Madi sighs on the other side of the laundry wall. “Thirteen or thirty, it's her body.”

“But he did this to her!” Furiosa erupts, glowering at the top of Madi's bent head. 

“Watch it,” Mel growls. 

Furiosa's glare burns at her instead. “He fucked his cock into her cunt and he made her pregnant and –”

“And it's _her choice what she does with it!_ ” Madi snaps, twisting in her seat to face Furiosa directly, laundry forgotten. 

“Capable,” Mel says, and they all three glance up at Capable lurking just in the shadow of the house with her arms wrapped tight across her chest. Mel stubs her half-finished cigarette in the ashtray. 

Madi stands on clicking joints and paces to the doorway with open hands. “Sorry, honey. Did we wake you?”

Capable shakes her head once. Her irises are very blue against bloodshot white. She points upstairs, then holds her hands palm to palm against her cheek, tilts her head to mime sleeping. 

“Angharad is resting, I know. We're sorry for being loud.” Madi offers a reassuring smile. “Go back to her. We promise to be quiet.”

With a lingering look at Furiosa, she vanishes back inside as silently as she came. Furiosa's head drops, all the muscles in her neck suddenly powerless. She blinks away tears that sting her eyes.

“There's nothing to discuss,” Mel says as she tucks the cigarettes back into her pocket with a downturned mouth 

Teeth grinding enough to hurt, Furiosa lurches to her feet and stomps inside. She still makes barely a sound. 

“What do you want for dinner?” Madi calls, folding laundry once more.

“Not hungry,” Furiosa mutters.

*

Furiosa spent nearly six hundred days locked in an attic – that she can remember, anyway. It's sort of strange to think about, in hindsight, how just under two orbits of the earth could pass her by. It was like being put in a fridge. She didn't really change. Physically, sure; she got taller, and thinner, ribs and shoulders and collarbones all sticking out like twigs on a dead tree. What breasts she'd developed down in the princess rooms melted away again. Pretty soon no one came to visit her at night. Not when there was juicier meat to be had elsewhere.

She was grateful.

She was lonely.

She thought long and hard about the cracked window pane with its razor sharp glass. Minute after minute, hour after hour, for days upon days. 

And when she fought her way out and broke her left arm beyond repair and crept downstairs with that gun, she didn't feel any older than when he first locked her away. Barely any older than Angharad. 

The irony is, she _likes_ the room she stays in now. It has the same kind of slanted ceilings and the same kind of shrunken window and it is a step out of sync with the rest of the house and she _likes_ it that way. 

Furiosa wonders sometimes if she's so fucked in the head she should be locked away again. 

An improvement on the previous attic room: the window opens all the way. 

Maybe it's an oversight – they weren't expecting to host six sisters – or maybe they trust her (or maybe, a dark part of her whispers, they're hoping she'll jump and save them all her particular brand of trouble). In any case, she likes nothing better than to sit on the ledge with her legs dangling over the three storey drop and gaze out at rolling brown fields climbing up the distant hills. 

If she's here in summer, there'll be greenery everywhere, like she used to look at in her books as a child. If she's here.

Sometimes the slanted ceiling is a bit too familiar. On those nights, Furiosa swings out the window, scurrying over the slippery tiles, moss and dead leaves smearing in dark patches on her knees as she hauls herself up to the very top of the house. The sky overhead is so big, the world so wide; she takes a big breath of the cold wind and imagines she can feel the planet spinning and she feels _part of it_ , like she is spinning too. 

It's enough, to get through the hours and the days and the weeks. To what end, she doesn't know, but it's enough.

Already the sun has sunk behind the western hills, its last rays bruising the sky with clouds of eggplant and indigo. Rain blurs the eastern range. Furiosa can smell it on the air, thick and metallic. Soon it will sweep down the valley, drenching the town and turning the bare fields to quagmires. She shivers in the night air, breathes it deep and cold into her lungs, and watches the steady march of the downpour. 

The figure catches her attention because it's unexpected, for all that it is so distant. Two fields over, a person trudges doggedly on against the persistent wind. Furiosa follows their progress for nearly an hour as they creep slowly closer; she winces when they slip, heart falling at every fence, rising with every obstacle conquered. She doesn't know why she cares, only that she does; she wants this determined figure battling the elements to win.

They pass the house, close enough that Furiosa's suspicions are confirmed: the stranger, the one with the jacket. He really has walked all the way from school. His hair is wild in the growing wind, and he bends nearly double as he turns due east. She wonders why he didn't follow the road.

“Furiosa?” Toast's voice drifts up from the open window. 

The sun has truly set now; there's no light by which to see his diminishing outline. 

“Furiosa?”

“I'm coming.” Getting down is harder, especially as the rainstorm approaches with spiteful blasts of wind, but Furiosa manages not to fall to her death. (One more day.) Toast is waiting for her anxiously on the ledge, brown eyes big and serious.

“Mel says to shut the window. It's gonna rain.” 

“Yeah.” She climbs back in, closes the night out. The air inside feels warm and thick like a blanket. 

There's a tray of food on the bedside table next to her bed: pasta and salad and a hunk of fresh bread. Furiosa's stomach rumbles even as her mouth turns down at the corners. 

“Madi says you should eat something,” Toast says. Sighing, Furiosa bypasses her sister, collapsing onto the bed. She presses her flesh hand against the dip of her belly, hollow like a cave. 

Tries to imagine a baby in there. Joe's baby. Tries to imagine carrying around a piece of him inside. Feeling it kick. Feeling _attached_ to it. 

She shakes her head against the pillow. There's no way. She couldn't. She would rip it out of her womb and be thankful for the pain. 

Toast crawls up alongside her, tucks herself into Furiosa's ribs. Furiosa wraps her arm around Toast's back, strokes through her soft black hair. “How was school today?” she asks.

“We learned about the water cycle and telling time.”

“Oh yeah? Telling time is a good skill.”

“Uh huh. I can tell three o'clock and six o'clock and nine o'clock.”

Furiosa closes her eyes, lips twitching. “Hometime, dinnertime, bedtime,” she says.

Toast lifts her head, raises her brows when Furiosa looks at her. “Really?” At Furiosa's nod, she lays back down. “Cool.”

They're quiet for a while. Downstairs someone is washing the dishes, and the TV is on, and Cheedo is burbling nonsense at Dag, who burbles right back. Furiosa strains to hear Angharad, but there's nothing to hear. 

“Furiosa,” Toast murmurs.

“Yeah?” 

“Could I be pregnant?”

Furiosa turns to cold and immovable stone. She forces her eyes open, looking down at Toast curled into a little comma and stuffed as close to Furiosa as she can get. 

“No,” she says, more sharply than she means. Toast glances up.

“But – he put it in me. He did. Like Angharad. And Capable and Dag. What if we're all –”

“You're not. Listen to me.” Furiosa sits up, pulling Toast with her so that she can look her square in the face. “We went to the hospital afterwards, when the police came. Remember? And the nurses checked you between the legs.”

Toast screws up her nose. “I didn't like that.”

“Neither did I, but it was necessary. And you remember – they made us all pee in cups. And you got it on your hand.”

Unbidden, Toast laughs, then slaps a hand over her mouth. “Gross.”

“That was so they could do a test,” Furiosa presses. “That's how they see if you're pregnant or not.” She takes Toast's hand off her mouth and holds it tightly in her own. “You and me, and Dag and Capable, we're not pregnant.”

“Just Angharad,” Toast says solemnly.

“Just Angharad.”

Toast lies back down, frowning in deep thought. Furiosa makes her body relax against the mattress, though her cheek is twitching and her heart pounds in her ears. 

“Madi says I'm going to be an aunty,” Toast says. “But I forgot what that is.”

Gulping back bile, Furiosa coughs on its acid burn in her throat. Her hand clenches into a fist behind Toast where she can't see. She takes a slow breath through her nose and _wills_ her voice to steadiness.

“Aunty is what you call the sister of the mom. If Angharad has the baby, she'll be the mom, and you're her sister. You'll be the baby's aunty.”

“So you'll be an aunty too?”

The roaring fury caged inside Furiosa crackles under her skin. 

“Yes,” she murmurs. “I'll be an aunty too.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Green Valley High goes into lockdown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: lockdown, canon-typical violence, references to school shootings.

He's on the bus again in the morning, looking none the worse for his arduous journey the night before. Furiosa nods in greeting, then takes the same seat at the front, sits sideways to watch him and Nettie and the saturated brown fields in one. The storm has passed, leaving in its wake puddles in the road so huge and deep the bus feels like a ship at sea.

(Angharad sat next to Furiosa at the breakfast table with skin gone sallow and blotchy. Furiosa's jaw hurt biting back all the unforgivable things she wanted to say.)

There's no Slit today, something Furiosa didn't realise she was dreading until the wave of relief sweeps through her as they wash past his stop. She catches jacket man's eye and they share a moment of recognition, a threat avoided. 

Furiosa hops off the bus in a marginally better mood.

Principal James is waiting at the bottom of the school steps. “Miss Jobassa!” he calls in a deep, booming voice. He has a Ziploc bag of phone parts dangling from one hand. 

Heads swivel in Furiosa's direction. Her spine goes rigid, and she has to force herself to move away from the bus. He isn't that much taller than her, but standing in front of him, he is so much broader; she feels as weak and insubstantial as the girl tied to that attic bed. “I believe this is yours?” he says, and offers her the little plastic bag.

She forces her arm to rise, hand to unclench, fingers to grip, head to nod. Can't make her eyes meet his and that failure shrivels like burnt paper inside her.

“You did a number on the locker under yours, however. Steel toe caps?” He sniffs through his nose; it might be humour but she doesn't look up to check. “Mr Rockatansky!” he calls over her head. “Your locker is indisposed. We have assigned you a new one. Come to the office.”

And away he goes. Furiosa lets out a slow breath between her teeth and feels the adrenaline tremor through her.

Jacket man stalks past with his duffel slung over one shoulder. His legs curve out a bit as he walks, like he learned by watching a bear do it first. 

Furiosa shakes off the eyes boring into her back and follows them inside.

*

In the middle of Biology with the sophomores, in the middle of a test she didn't study for, the intercom crackles to life, and Principal James says quite calmly, “Lockdown, lockdown, lockdown.”

Ms Smithers leaps up from her stool like she's been electrocuted. “Everyone, hide! Now!”

For a moment Furiosa is completely confused. 

Then, she remembers, from years ago, the old procedures she learnt in elementary school. Her lungs seize, ribs suddenly too tight. The sophomores exchange horrified stares before they move, whispering as they scurry to the blind corner out of sight of the door. A girl is already crying, her friend's hand gripped bruisingly tight over her mouth to muffle any noise. One of the boys pulls the blinds down, cloaking them in darkness. Ms Smithers grabs her register off her desk and shuts down the gas connections at the master switch. Then she sticks her head out the door, ducks back in, closes and locks it.

“Oh God, oh Jesus, oh God,” someone whispers.

“Shush.” Ms Smithers hunkers down next to them and they sit, in silence, and listen. 

Furiosa's heart is pounding so hard she's sure the others can hear it. They're all looking at each other, gripping hands and cuddling into shoulders. Furiosa pulls her knees in tight, folds her arms against them, rests her forehead on the cool plastic of her prosthetic. Swallows and swallows against the panic churning just under the surface. 

There's no noise from outside. No gunshots. No screaming. Just awful, awful silence. Furiosa counts the ticking of the clock, restarting every time she hits sixty. Another minute alive. Another. Another. Another.

She thinks of her sisters and listens.

The intercom crackles again. “Lockdown drill is complete,” Principal James announces. “Stand down.” 

A rush of breath as everyone sighs with relief. The crying girl lets out a hysterical shriek and throws her arms around her friend. 

“Fucking hell!” shouts one of the guys and high-fives the boy next to him. 

Ms Smithers levers to her feet. “That's quite enough of that,” she says as she raises the blinds, letting in a stream of watery sunshine.

“A drill, can you believe it? I thought I was gonna fucking die at sixteen!”

The sentiment is echoed by Furiosa's classmates, and pretty soon they're all hugging each other, laughing and crying. Furiosa stands outside it, staring out the window, hand flexing, skin cold and prickly. 

Ms Smithers unlocks the lab. “You might as well go early. It's nearly hometime anyway.” 

The students exit as a group, clumped together against phantom predators. Furiosa watches them go. None of them look back at her.

“Furiosa?” Ms Smithers approaches. “Are you alright?”

Furiosa could be a glacier for how much she responds, but under the surface she is churning, churning, churning. 

“I know it's a little scary, but these drills are necessary. We live in evil times.” Ms Smithers fusses around the room, cleaning up equipment, flicking the gas back on. She looks at Furiosa still frozen in the blind corner. “Furiosa?”

Once again Furiosa's life was held in the hands of someone else, her body threatened with violence while she could do _nothing_ and the impotence burns like _acid_ inside her til she feels like a hollow shell of a girl filled with nothing but caustic rage. 

“Are you alright?”

Furiosa lifts her chin – half a nod, at least – and _makes_ herself move out the door.

*

The hallways are rammed, hundreds of students running to check in with friends, girls squealing and boys thumping each other on the back and impromptu prayer circles springing up all over the place. Furiosa skirts around them. The front steps are just as bad, impossible to bull her way through with most of the Warboys in a clump at the entrance, and she – she's had enough. It's too loud and too boisterous and her nerves are _raw_. She needs to get free. 

Her feet take her to the access steps to the roof. No one is watching: the students are preoccupied, the teachers distracted. It's easy enough to slip inside the dark little stairwell with its fire door framed in daylight just above her. She ascends, boots reassuringly solid as they thunk down, and every step calms her heart a little more. Takes her away from the madness.

She found this place during her first week, when the snow lay like a shroud on a frozen world. When everything was uncertain and she didn't know what was going to happen to her and Angharad's little seedling was a secret known only to Angharad. When sitting in classrooms for six hours a day seemed intolerable, absurd, now that she was free of one cage they were putting her in _another_. That first week she spent a lot of time on the roof under the big open blue sky, until Principal James came up on Friday afternoon, with Mel and Madi, and said, “No more.”

Every time she's tried it, though, the door has been unlocked. 

The breeze is swift and fresh and tickles across Furiosa's shorn scalp. She takes a deep lungful, feels her ribs expand, her heart thumping steady and strong against the in-held breath. Strains to hold onto it before she lets it ease out of her nose, warm and moist on her upper lip. 

Feels, under the racing white clouds, like she can start piecing herself back together again.

The tackle comes in from the left. Caught completely unaware, Furiosa is knocked off her feet, goes down hard against the cement tiles, loses skin from her face as she skids. For a moment everything is speckled black. She sucks in a desperate breath, lungs heaving, and tries to make sense of the world. 

She is laying on the floor. Her face hurts. There's blood in her mouth where she bit her cheek.

The solid weight of a man is pressing down all along her left side.

Fear swamps her nervous system, makes her limbs watery and weak. She has been here before, a hundred times, prone and cold and afraid – and she is fucking _finished_ with feeling that way. Focuses the pounding heart, the shuddery muscles, channels them instead into a blind, demented eruption of anger.

With a howl of rage she knocks her head sideways, collides with his face – nose or chin, doesn't matter, the man grunts and pulls away – and rolls onto her back, gets her knees up and _kicks_. Steel toe caps, straight into his gut. The breath bursts out of him and he curls inwards, arms wrapped around his middle. Furiosa scrambles out from under him, gets to her knees just as he recovers, growls and launches at her. 

She goes down again, cracks her head brutally hard off the floor. She screams again, scratches at his face with her right hand and slaps with her left, gets hair caught in the plastic joint and _wrenches_. He yelps and wrestles to free her prosthetic from his hair. Furiosa hauls her arm down and he goes with it, collapsing sideways. She rolls with him, sits astride his belly with her left hand tangled in his hair, folds her right into a fist and beats down on his face as hard as she can. 

She's not even seeing him, doesn't know who it is and doesn't fucking care; she will beat him bloody for thinking he could take her off guard. No one will ever do that again: she will never give them the satisfaction. He holds his arms up to shield himself and she punches down with all her strength and digs her knees into his ribs and shouts out loud with every vicious strike.

On a roar of pain he jerks his head and her hand comes loose, prosthetic _still tangled in hair_ but now he's free with blood suddenly drizzling down the side of his head. He swings wildly with both hands, smacking her across the face and oh _fuck_ she remembers now, remembers how much that hurts, how the pain pulses out from the impact point in devastating ripples. In that split second where she's dazed, he grabs her neck tight in a vicious grip and flips them. 

Furiosa snaps back to attention in a hurry, sinks her nails into the back of his hand and knees him in the ribs and kicks at his legs with her boots and writhes like a snake but he has her throat. She can't breathe, the pressure is unbearable – like her head is going to pop. Her vision is going spotty and then he catches her legs with his so she can't move; he's sat low on her pelvis and _she can't move_. 

He hoists his fist over her head and Furiosa flinches. Goes nauseatingly, sickeningly still.

She's pinned. The fury ebbs out of her limbs. She feels cold, shivery in its absence. There's only a bitter hatred left behind. 

Her face is agony. She licks her lips and tastes blood. Takes a thin, shuddery breath through her constricted windpipe. Her pulse pumps against his fingers and thumb either side of her neck. She squints up at him.

It's the jacket man. His hair is wild and matted with blood, gouges carved out of his cheek and lip. He's staring at Furiosa with eyes so wide she can see the white all the way around. 

His hovering fist wavers.

Furiosa reaches for the last embers of her dying inferno.

“If you try to fuck me, I swear to God I will kill you,” she wheezes. “I've done it before.”

He stares at her. Lowers his arm, leather jacket creaking. Loosens his grip just a fraction so she can take a gasping breath. 

“... What?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Furiosa finally learns the name of her assailant, but at a cost.

There are splatters of blood all across the tiles. 

They sit facing each other on opposite sides of the too-narrow roof, their backs to the wall, out of sight of anyone who might think to look up from the ground below. Furiosa watches the jacket man through one eye. The other has swollen shut. Her whole face hurts, from the sharp jabs on her right to the aching aftershocks on the left.

She's missing two nails from her fingers. There's a chunk bitten out of the inside of her cheek. Breathing sends a spike of pain lancing up her shoulder blade. 

His fucking hair is _still_ caught in the wrist of her prosthetic, but her hand stings too much to pick it out. 

Very slowly, very gingerly, jacket man leans sideways, hooks his fingers in his duffel and drags it back to him. He mumbles something at her as he unzips it.

She licks her dry lips with a dry tongue. “What?”

“Got some stuff,” he repeats, gestures at his face, at hers. Pulls out an honest-to-god First Aid kit, in a little plastic box and everything. 

Furiosa would laugh if her throat didn't still burn. “Were you _planning_ to beat the crap out of me?”

He ignores her in favour of opening the box. She can see it's well stocked, as good as Madi's: bandages and band-aids and antiseptic wipes and those little medical scissors. 

“You want?”

Furiosa gives him a sour look. Doesn't move. 

The man shrugs, winces, scowls, winces again. Sets to cleaning himself up with nary a glance at Furiosa. There's a lot of blood in his hair and across his face. He gets the worst off with a spare shirt and a bottle of water, applies rubbing alcohol to the wounds with little hisses of pain through his teeth. Picks something out of his beard with two fingers she suspects might be one of her nails. 

He opens a rattling bottle of pills, pours four into his palm and knocks them back with a shot of water. 

Furiosa's face really fucking hurts. 

She levers to her feet in aching movements, feeling like she got hit by a truck. He watches her warily, shirt still in one hand, hair dripping water over his jacket in pinkish trails. 

She stops just out of his range. Taps her boot against the floor as warning. He nods and offers her the pill bottle. Furiosa tries to crouch, so she can stay on her feet, but her abdomen is a screaming mess. She sits instead. Takes the bottle and dry-swallows three. All she can taste is blood. 

The First Aid kit gets shoved toward her, the water bottle rolling along behind. She takes the shirt from his fingers directly, and then he relaxes back against the wall with a heartfelt sigh, eyes closed and hands folded over his gut. There are bloody half-crescents gouged in the back of one. 

It's quiet – only the distant murmur of loitering students gossiping about the day's main event. Furiosa wipes away the blood, flinching at the sting over open wounds. Her eye stubbornly refuses to open. That will be fun to explain tonight. She wraps band-aids around her raw fingers, dabs rubbing alcohol onto the scrapes on her face, and that's the best she can do until she gets back to The Greenhouse. 

Huffing a breath, Furiosa packs the materials away, closing the lid of the First Aid kit with a click. She passes it back to jacket man, who receives it with a silent nod. 

Somewhere underneath them, the bell sounds to signify the official end of the school day. Furiosa is not inclined to move, and, from the look of him, neither is her fight partner. 

“What are you doing up here?” she asks softly. He squints one eye at her, then sits up with a grunt. His arms curl around his gut. 

“Lockdown,” he says.

“You're meant to go into a classroom. Not the roof.”

“Hmm. Thought – thought they might – It's safer up here.”

“And if it _was_ a shooter? What if they came up here for the height advantage?”

He throws her a narrow look. “Thought that was you.”

Furiosa leans back on her prosthetic, studying the man opposite, who was scared enough to hide and desperate enough to attack. “You're a fool,” she decides. 

He shrugs one shoulder and frowns again at the flare of pain. Furiosa takes some smug satisfaction in having hurt him.

“You?” he asks. His voice is little more than a rumble, thunder vibrating under her sternum instead of in her ears.

“I needed a smoke.” She's reminded that she never actually got one, but her bag is too far away to reach. More than it wants a nicotine hit, her body would like to stay very still. Furiosa sighs and remains where she's half-sprawled, propped up on her full arm, both eyes shut and basking in the spring sun's meagre warmth. Her face throbs and throbs. 

“Don't fall asleep.” 

She blinks her functioning eye open, focuses a little woozily on his hairy, bloody face. 

“You smacked your head. Might have concussion.”

Frowning, she prods at her skull with tender fingers and ow, yes, there's a pretty lump that can't be hidden by her non-existent hair. 

He gives her a look that is somewhat apologetic. 

“Get me a cigarette.” Returning his scowl with a pained sneer, she says, “You owe me.”

“Broke my locker,” he huffs, though he's already levering himself in creaking inches to his feet. 

“You broke my face,” Furiosa mumbles back. She's beginning to feel nauseous. 

Her bag drops down beside her, startling enough to make her flinch. That triggers a cascade of pain from her swollen head to her bruised knees. Furiosa leans to one side and retches. 

“Woah, okay, okay,” jacket man says. “Hey, um, girl, um.”

Furiosa lifts her head to glare with one watery eye. There is spit trailing from her chin, cold in the wind, and she thinks her lip has split again. 

“Furiosa,” she snarls and swallows back another heave. 

Jacket man kneels next to her, movements slow, exaggerated. Up close, it's easier to see how young he actually is beneath the matted hair. He uncaps the bottle and lifts it to her lips, helps her sip small mouthfuls. Then he wets the spare shirt – beyond saving, at this point – and dabs it delicately over her chin. 

She considers biting his fingers, but her head hurts so fucking much. 

“Furiosa,” he says. “Nurse.” 

The headshake comes before she thinks about it, and then she's vomiting again, over his hand and splashing on his jeans. 

Moving is bad, moving _hurts_. Furiosa never appreciated how tall she is until now, when she's having to climb nearly six feet up from the floor. Jacket man wraps his arm around her shoulders for support, and she really wants to shrug him off but if she does she knows she'll go down like a sack of bricks. He has both their bags across his back and most of Furiosa's weight against him as they inch down the stairs. 

The hallway is blessedly empty, almost everyone heading home, and the few that are left studiously do not look at the two strange stragglers. They shuffle along towards the nurse's station. Furiosa dry heaves but there's nothing in her to expel: even the painkillers are out. 

Jacket man escorts her to the bed and props her there with her bag beside her.

“Can I help – good _God_ what happened?”

Furiosa blinks at the tiny figure peering up at her. It might be the nurse, or some kind of fairy from children's tales. 

“We, uh,” jacket man says. 

The little woman spins to face him; Furiosa feels dizzy just watching her.

“Did you do this?” she accuses, finger pointing. 

“Um.”

“We were fighting,” Furiosa says helpfully. Her voice sounds kind of funny, raspy and sore and slow. “Practising. Got –” She waves a hand vaguely in the air. “Carried away.”

“Is that so?” the nurse says. Furiosa can't tell whether she believes or not. Truthfully, she's not even sure where the nurse is. Everything is very hazy. A dark blur shuffles towards what might be the door. “Sit! You're injured too. I'll get to you.”

Jacket man perches on the bed next to Furiosa. She squints at him. “What do I call you?” she slurs. 

He huffs a breath; it blows over the tender skin on her neck when he looks at her. “Max. My name is Max.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It takes the weekend for Furiosa to feel less like she was hit by a truck. Her sisters and foster family help her to recover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for implied/referenced paedophilia with a 4-year-old.

Mel takes one look at her and whistles low. “That's gonna hurt in the morning,” she says.

Furiosa wants to say, _It hurts now_ , but it hurts too much to say it. 

“I recommend a night at the hospital, just to be safe,” says the tiny nurse. Furiosa shakes her head, gulping back her nausea as she stares one-eyed at Mel.

“We'll see how we go,” she says with a short nod. “Where's the bastard that did it?” 

“With Principal James,” the nurse answers. Alarms blare in some distant corner of Furiosa's mind. “He says they were wrestling.”

“Wrestling,” Mel echoes. “Huh.” She swings Furiosa's bag over her shoulder. “C'mon.”

School is out now but Mel guides her through the hallway safely, ignores the stares and whispers of loitering students. 

Furiosa doesn't deliberately look for Max. That might be him standing in the line for the bus. Then again, that might be a streetlight. Her vision is really messed up. Mel helps her into the car, slings her bag in the back before climbing into the driver's seat. The radio twangs to country life. 

“Nyugh!” Furiosa flails at the noise until Mel turns it off. “Thanks,” she mumbles, and then passes out.

*

They all gather round the car when Mel pulls in the driveway. Dag has Cheedo on one hip, has to lean far to counterbalance the weight; she's tall for a ten-year-old, but not particularly strong. Capable holds the passenger door open so Madi can help Furiosa out. Her little nap did nothing but make her more disorientated, and now that they've stopped moving her stomach is starting to cramp up.

“Angharad, run a bath will you?” Madi calls over her shoulder. Angharad nods and vanishes inside the house, Capable hot on her heels.

“Toast,” Mel calls from the driver's side. Frowning worriedly, Toast rounds the back of the car. When she comes back into view, it's with Furiosa's bag clutched in both arms like a prize. 

“F'rosa?” Cheedo says. Her eyes are very solemn.

“I'm okay,” Furiosa rasps, sounding anything but. 

They traipse into the house at Furiosa's speed – a bare shuffle while the world spins and swirls – and then there's the staircase. Furiosa almost, almost whimpers. 

“Come on, up we go,” Madi coaxes. She goes backwards up the steps, keeping a steady grip on Furiosa's hair-tangled prosthetic. 

“You're staying in our room tonight,” Mel announces from behind, arms out like a football player. 

“What? No,” Furiosa starts.

“You think you can manage the next staircase too?” Mel challenges. 

“Be nice,” Madi scolds. She smiles softly at Furiosa. “You're going to have a rough night. Best to be near a private bathroom.”

They're only halfway up and already Furiosa's eyes are slipping shut, too exhausted to keep open. “Toast?” she slurs, and hopes that's enough to express her meaning.

“Toast can try sleeping in her own bed tonight, like a big girl,” Mel says. 

Furiosa sighs, and takes another step.

Mel and Madi's bedroom is a place she's never been, and Furiosa wishes that were still true. It's nice, country-styled like all the rest of the house; one of them has a weird chicken obsession judging by the number of crocheted hens stuffed on a wicker chair in the corner. It's just – it's _theirs_ , their private space, and here she is blighting it with dirt and blood.

Angharad emerges from the bathroom in a cloud of steam. Her hair has gone frizzy at the edges. She approaches Furiosa carefully, Capable at her side, and peers up into Furiosa's one open eye. With gentle fingers, she brushes over the raw scrapes on Furiosa's cheek, until Furiosa hisses and pulls away. “I'm sorry this happened,” Angharad murmurs. 

Furiosa tries to smile; it feels lopsided and woozy. “Not your fault.” 

“Right!” Mel declares, making them all jump. “You lot, out. We've got dinner to massacre.” She herds all the sisters out the door by sheer force of presence, leaving Furiosa and Madi standing awkwardly in the master bedroom, listening to the fading voices as Angharad explains to Toast what 'massacre' means. 

“Do you want some help?” Madi asks.

“I'm fine,” Furiosa says. Can feel herself wobble a bit but she's still upright.

“Okay. I'll wait here. Call me if you need me.”

Furiosa shuffles into the en suite and _snicks_ the door shut behind. She leans against the thin wood and lets the moan shudder through her. Whatever the nurse gave her at school is wearing off fast; Furiosa can barely think through the agony. 

It is very hot in here. She opens her one working eye and squints at the tub, filled high with steaming water. She's not a bath person, really, but it looks incredibly inviting. 

Then she considers the steps she must take to get into the bath, and her throat closes on a knot of frustrated tears. 

She makes it to the toilet, manages to ease herself into a sitting position on its closed fluffy lid. But bending over to undo her boot laces proves too much. Between her concussion and bruises, she's fucked. 

There's a gentle knock at the door. “Furiosa?” Madi calls. “Do – Let me help. Please. Don't sit and suffer.”

Furiosa has to swallow twice before her voice will come. “Okay.”

The steamy air swirls when Madi swings the door open. “Oh honey, don't strain yourself.” She kneels at Furiosa's feet, picks at the laces until they come loose and she can wrestle the boots off. “It's been an interesting day for everyone,” she says, when the boots are put aside and she's rolling Furiosa's socks down. 

“Yeah?” Furiosa makes herself say. It feels like someone rammed a metal pike through her head. Someone. Max. Bastard.

“Mmm.” Madi creaks to her feet, helps Furiosa ease off her hoodie. Her shirt is next – buttons, Furiosa has never been so thankful for buttons – and then she's sat in her bra and jeans feeling like she might pass out again. Madi gasps, wrapping a hand over her mouth. “Oh, Furiosa.”

Furiosa looks down. There are a lot of bruises. Big, colourful splodges, like one of Cheedo's finger paintings on the fridge. It's sort of surreal to see them when she can't really feel them yet. Her headache supersedes everything else. 

“Had worse,” she mutters, not untruthfully. 

There are tears brimming in Madi's eyes. She sniffs, wipes her nose and clears her throat. “Up we get,” she says with a rough voice. “I'll help you take your pants off.”

Balancing on one leg, then the other, while someone else eases her jeans off and her head tries to convince her that up is down and down is up, is something that Furiosa would really like not to repeat. Ever.

Madi talks as she works, an idle chatter that trickles through Furiosa's ears in pieces. “Toast punched a boy in the face today. The school have suspended them both for a day – he shoved her off the swings apparently. Dag's slipped back into Russian. I think watching that film helped. But she gets angry when no one can understand her. And Cheedo – Cheedo tried to touch a member of staff at pre-school. Between the legs. He, um, well, he reported it, obviously. Did – Are you sure Joe didn't …?”

Furiosa makes sure not to shake her head this time. “No,” she says. “He was waiting. Might've made her touch, though.”

“Right.” Madi stands with Furiosa's jeans folded over her forearm; she flexes her back to a symphony of cracking joints. “I'm getting old,” she sighs. “Do you want me to take your arm?”

Furiosa blinks slowly. She is standing in her bra and panties, bruised all over; she can't make sense of anything. 

“Come on, that's it.” Madi eases the prosthetic off her shoulder and hangs it on the hook at the back of the door, turning to Furiosa with a smile. “Okay, into the tub before it turns cold.”

*

Dried and drugged and propped against a mountain of pillows, Furiosa receives a stream of visitors. Dag brings Cheedo, the both of them chattering languages Furiosa can't understand. They get frustrated when Furiosa does little more than blink at them; Madi shoos them off to bed before either starts crying.

Toast comes. “It's nine o'clock,” she says authoritatively. 

“Mmm.”

“Bedtime.” She climbs onto the bed beside Furiosa, but restrains herself from cuddling up close like normal. “I hit a boy today,” she confides.

Furiosa smiles, eyes closing. “Me too.”

Angharad and Capable come by hand in hand a little before ten. They look exhausted, dark shadows under their eyes, lips pinched and pale. 

“I know you're not happy with me,” Angharad says. Furiosa drags herself out of her light doze, squinting to bring Angharad into focus. “But it's my body. My baby. My choice.”

Somewhere beneath the pain and the confusion and the drugs, Furiosa feels a spasm of hurt and horror, like an arrow to the heart. The concussion swamps it out.

“Now's really not the time,” Mel tells them from the door. They frown, and scoot out under her arm. Furiosa lets her head slump back against the pillows. 

“Get used to the sound of my voice,” Mel says. “You're gonna be hearing it every hour.”

Furiosa slips into sleep.

*

“C'mon then. You survived the night, so you get breakfast. Toast, stuff some pillows behind her.” Her abdomen _hurts_ when she sits up, and her head still aches, but it feels less like she was hit by a train; she counts it as a win.

“Madi made French toast,” Toast informs her, sitting very still as Mel lowers the lap tray so its legs sit either side of Furiosa's thighs. 

“Go slow,” she warns. 

The food tastes very rich, too sweet and too salty and too rough. Mel and Toast both stare as she takes the first bite, and then a second. Furiosa feels like she's back at the hospital, picking at meals, trying her best while the nurses watch. 

“Help me out?” Furiosa offers half a slice to Toast, who takes it after a quick glance at Mel for permission. 

It takes an hour, but Furiosa manages most of it. Her stomach churns on the new input; she can almost feel the glucose bubbling in her veins. 

“Right, you,” Mel says to Toast. “Homework.”

“But it's the weekend,” Toast whines, “and I'm suspended!” 

“Which means you have even less sympathy from me. Get moving.”

Toast clambers off the bed with more force than Furiosa thinks is necessary. She stomps out the door and slams it shut behind her, only to open it immediately again, peering in at Furiosa with wide worried eyes. “Sorry! Sorry, I forgot. I forgot, sorry.”

“It's fine,” Furiosa says through gritted teeth. Toast closes the door with much more restraint the second time. 

Mel gathers up the plate and tray and places them on the windowsill. “How you doing?”

“I'm fine.”

“You look like shit.” Then, with an exaggerated glance at the door, Mel reaches into her cardigan pocket and presents a cigarette and a lighter. Furiosa's lips twitch for wont of a smile. “Just don't tell Madi. She'll skin me like a cat.”

*

It takes until Saturday night for Furiosa to feel _able_ to get out of bed for anything other than trips to the bathroom. It isn't until Sunday lunchtime that she actually _wants_ to. Roast chicken and vegetables coaxes her downstairs, dressed in thick pyjamas and fluffy slippers. They're sat around the table, Madi murmuring 'grace' before they eat.

“F'rosa!” Cheedo calls, and they all look up. Her throat feels suddenly thick and aching, like Max has her by the neck again. 

“Good to see you up,” Madi says. She gestures at the seat next to her. Furiosa shuffles to it, easing herself down with a stifled gasp. 

Capable gives her the thumbs up with a frowning face.

“I'm fine, just a little sore.”

“Dig in, girls!” Madi encourages. 

Furiosa eats what she can – dry chicken, and boiled broccoli, and a little mashed potato – but her stomach is still tender. She tries not to notice Mel keeping an eye, smiles with the rest when Dag starts making the leg bones dance for Cheedo's amusement. 

Madi follows her upstairs to the attic that evening, prosthetic dehaired and resting on a basket of clean laundry. “Are you sure you're alright for school tomorrow?” she asks, possibly for the fifth time.

“I'm fine. It only hurts a little. And my headache is almost gone.” Furiosa plops down on her bed – it's not _her_ bed, it's not _her_ room, but it feels comfortable, _familiar_ , enough to bring tears stinging to her eyes that she quickly blinks away.

Madi starts separating Furiosa's folded clothes from the rest. “And you're sure this boy isn't a threat? I know, I know you said it was just a practice. And I know you ripped out a hunk of his hair. But – honey.” She squats in front of her, rests veined hands on the soft bedspread and looks at Furiosa with very serious eyes, biting her lip. “If he's hurting you, you have to tell us. Okay? You have to. No one is allowed to hurt you. Do you understand?” 

The tears are back. Furiosa nods, coughs and blinks, turning to look out the window. She's missed the view this weekend. 

“He won't hurt me,” she tells the clear cold glass. Not without her consent, anyway, and that's something she needs to talk to him about on the bus in the morning.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first day back after her beating, and Furiosa has a plan to make sure she's never that weak again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks to youkaiyume and primarybufferpanel for feedback on the first draft of this chapter.

While it can't be said that Furiosa is eager to go to school on Monday morning, it's the first time she's rolled out of bed at the alarm's command filled with purpose. The headache that's plagued her all weekend is finally gone. Her abs hurt, but it's the dull twinge of healing. Only the raw skin where her missing nails should be still troubles her. 

She's been stewing on her idea all weekend long, balancing the pros against the cons, deciding on a course of action. Now, she _has_ decided. When Furiosa makes a choice, that's the end of discussion.

She hisses at the press of cold plastic to her stump as she secures the prosthetic into place. Then, dressed in blue jeans, a baggy tee and a thick hoodie, she kneels by the window and rests her forehead against the glass, waiting. It's secret and hushed outside, the promise of a new day still wrapped in dark potential.

The snooze alarm blares. Toast whines puppy-like and burrows under the floral duvet.

Smiling, Furiosa crawls back onto the bed next to the Toast-sized lump, curling around it with her head propped on her hand. "Time to get up."

The lump squirms. "Don't want to."

Furiosa pokes it. "You can't hide in there forever."

"Can."

Poke. "Can't."

A giggle. "Caaaaaan."

Sitting up, Furiosa grabs the cover and flicks it off Toast in one go. She squeals and tucks into a tiny ball. "Can't."

"Furiosaaaaaa!"

Furiosa prods Toast in the back until, squeaking and laughing, she opens like a clam and glares up at Furiosa. Her hair is a spectacular nest of static and knots, her eyes bright and teeth gleaming in the bend of her smile. She's squirmed so much that her pyjamas – decorated with blobby yellow 'minions', whatever they are – have bunched up at the arms and legs.

She looks like a normal girl who has never seen or done anything that would involve social services. She is the picture of innocence, and it twists Furiosa's heart into a spiral of sudden agony. 

Five months ago, Toast lay on a bed with tears streaking down her face as she screamed and struggled against the broad merciless hands pinning her to the mattress, making so much noise that Furiosa could creep in, delirious with pain, and lift the heavy gun and – 

The snooze alarm _brrrings_ again. Furiosa slaps it with more force than necessary. She lets out a shuddering breath. 

"Furiosa." A small hand strokes over the mottled green bruising on the side of her face. "Don't get hurt. You've been hurt enough."

Squinting back tears, Furiosa turns and presses a sweet kiss to Toast's palm and thinks, _I will go through absolutely anything to protect you._ She already has so much to make up for.

*

There's a man on the bus.

It takes a second for Furiosa to realise it's _him_. Max Rockatansky, of the battered jacket and acres of wild hair. Except the hair is gone. He's cut it all off – and it's clear that _he's_ cut it, as lopsided and irregular as it is. There's a small raw bald patch near his temple where a chunk has been ripped out, and a tuft sticking up at the back that he completely missed, like he hacked at it using garden shears and no mirror. The thick beard has retreated too, down to a golden brown scruff across his jaw, broken by the thick pink swell of his lips. 

Furiosa is a little stunned at the transformation.

He nods respectfully at her. Then his eyebrows creep up as, while wheels accelerate underfoot, she wobbles down the gangway. Furiosa's heart pounds against the underside of her sternum. Her brain races greyhound-fast; she can see her goal, see what she wants to happen – she just has to get there. And convince Max that it's what he wants too.

She looms over Max, who glares up at her, clutching his duffel in a white-knuckled grip. The hairs on the back of her neck quiver at the pure venom in his eyes. _Shit, shit, shit._ Not the reaction she needs from him. 

She might have given up then, but Toast's face swims into mind. _I will do anything ..._ Swallowing against the clot of instinctive fear in her throat, Furiosa slowly eases herself onto the bench next to him, braced at any second to feel his fist colliding with her face. 

Nothing happens. For a long moment, fields blurring past the window and asphalt humming beneath their feet, Furiosa just breathes, until her muscles unlock and she can make her head turn. 

Max is just as frozen as she, duffel shielding most of his body, eyes flicking to her and away, to her and away. Furiosa is struck by just how _young_ he looks without the masses of hair. He still seems too old to be in high school, but she can narrow her age estimate from 18-40 to 18-25. 

“You're in my place, y'know,” she says, low enough to be eaten by the road noise, but he flinches like she's shouted in his ear. He looks at her out the corner of his eye, frowning. “I always sit there. You've taken my seat.”

He makes absolutely no move to stand up. Furiosa expected nothing less, though she hoped maybe it would be that easy. Licking her lips, she narrows her eyes in thought, then tries a different tack.

“I'm surprised to see you here, actually. Usually people are suspended for fighting.” No response. It's like talking to a mannequin. “Why weren't you?”

Max twitches one shoulder in a shadow of a shrug. “Does it matter?”

“Fine.” Furiosa scowls down the length of the gangway. Through the windscreen she can see the first collection after her: the four gossipy students. They climb aboard with heavy feet, slowing when they see Furiosa's front space empty, slamming to a halt at the sight of her sitting at the back next to the hairy man – suddenly sans most of his hair. Shuffling onto two benches, they huddle immediately together, whispering and gesturing. Furiosa glares at their bowed heads.

Max ignores them, but not in the way like her sisters do where the ignoring is a deliberate action against a person; he ignores them as if he really doesn't notice they're there. 

The next stop admits a Warboy onto the bus, and the sight of his letterman jacket jars Furiosa back to her purpose. Screwing up her courage, she shifts sideways on the bench to face Max more directly. Holding his duffel close again, he turns to look at her with grim expectation, like he knows he _can't_ ignore her. She is bleakly satisfied by this.

“I need you to teach me how to fight. Properly.” 

Max blinks, and his forehead wrinkles as his eyebrows climb. He frees one hand from his bag to gesture at the healing wounds carved in his cheek, his lip, his chin.

Furiosa points at her own face: the eye that only opened yesterday morning; the hideous brown-green bruising stretching from her shaved hairline to the corner of her split mouth; the merry ring of brown fingerprints marring her neck.

Voice gruff with honesty, Max says, “I'll always win.”

“Maybe.” Furiosa glares at him. “But maybe I won't be fighting _you_ next time. Maybe it'll be Slit. Maybe it'll be someone else.” She folds her arms, shoulders hunching up to her ears even though it tugs at tender muscles in her back and chest. “There's always someone else.” Max grunts deep in his throat.

It's too much to hope for that Slit would be off school another day. He saunters on with a can of Red Bull in one hand, spots Furiosa and Max sitting together at the back and licks his lips like the cat who got the cream.

“Jesus. Je _sus_.” He strolls up between the seat rows and slings himself into the space next to Furiosa, sprawling his legs out so she's pinned in next to Max. Her heart rate doubles, then triples when his eyes trace lazily over the bruising across her face and down to the fingermarks fading on her throat. 

Furiosa burns with hot sick hatred, as familiar as it is paralysing. She's in jeans and a hoodie and heavy boots and feels _naked_ under his eyes, feels tied down to a squeaking metal bed in an airless attic. Without conscious thought, she starts to count the seconds against her beating heart, drifting into the familiar lull: _five seconds, ten, fifteen. Still breathing. Still alive._

Grinning, Slit leans forward and offers his hand to Max. “Congratulations, wildman. You put the bitch in her place.”

His head is right in front of her. Furiosa observes the delicate ear with its graceful whorls and soft peach colouring. She could bite it, sink her teeth in and tear it clean off. _Twenty-five seconds. Thirty._

Dreamlike, she sways forward, mouth parting on a trembling breath. She's bitten plenty of men in her life, tasted their blood in the seconds before they smashed her face away. And she's done worse besides – the gun heavy in her hand, hammer cocked, finger on the trigger, the splatter of blood and bone and _brain_ while Toast screams and screams … 

Max knocks Slit's hand away, growling, and Furiosa blinks into herself with an inward gasp. Slit leans back, completely casual, eyebrows lifting in mock surprise. “Oh, is this some kind of kinky sex thing? Does she like it when you're rough? She likes to he held down, right?” He leers at Furiosa, licking his lips. “Yeah, I bet she does.”

The wrath strikes through her like lightning, scorching away the brainfog. Teeth bared, she kicks his shin, then stomps on his foot with all her strength. 

“Fuck!” Slit grips his leg – steel toe caps, best thing Mel ever did for her – and snarls at Furiosa. Then his fist lurches round in a wide arc aimed at Furiosa's head; she has time enough to wonder if it would be worse to be struck on the same or opposite side as before. 

Max's hand flashes past her, catches Slit's fist and does – _something_ , she can't see what, but then Slit is on his knees at her feet, hand trapped in Max's grip and actual tears coming to his eyes. The Red Bull can rolls under the seats with a wet metallic slosh.

The bus jerks to a sudden stop.

“What the hell is going on back there?” Nettie growls, stomping up the length of the bus. Max lets go of Slit, scooting back in his seat with the duffel clutched against his chest like his life depends on it. Slit scrambles to his feet. Nettie gives him a look of pure vitriol. “If you can't find somewhere to sit you can damn well walk!”

“That bastard should be in a fucking asylum! Fucking crazy!” 

“Watch your mouth.” 

Somehow, without touching him at all, Nettie herds Slit – still spitting curses and threats – “... fucking get you wildman and your little bitch ...” – down the bus to the front row. She waits until he's sat sullen and silent before she slides into her chair, kicks the bus into gear and jolts them back into motion.

Furiosa lets out a long, slow breath, pulse throbbing along the sides of her neck. “That,” she says. Max glances at her, still holding his bag close. “Teach me how to do that.”

Green Valley township swells around them in waves of housing, little Craftsman bungalows followed by bigger Foursquare houses before they hit the town proper. Main Street runs parallel to the Wenatchee River most of the way, its towering Victorian houses-cum-shops just starting to sparkle with life. The bus hooks a right onto Washington Avenue, overtaking a garbage truck serving a row of shuttered restaurants. Then, after a kiddies' park and Jerry's autorepair, Nettie steers left onto Chapel Street. Right on the corner is the clapboard chapel, its white paint greyed after a wet winter. Furiosa follows the tall spire up to the pale cross crowning mahogany roof tiles, stark against a watery sky. 

“Okay,” Max rumbles, out of the blue, as Green Valley High grows through the windscreen. He meets her eyes, wide and fierce and determined. Whatever it is he's battling against, Furiosa doesn't know, but, like he said – does it matter?

“Okay.” She leaps on the new opportunity, mind brimming with logistical questions she needs to pin down before he changes his mind. “Today? After school?” He shrugs. “Your house?” His mouth pinches down at the corners. “It can't be mine, and it can't be school.” Frowning, Max gives it some thought before he nods, once, a sigh streaming from his nose. 

Furiosa offers him a little smile in thanks, feeling unaccountably warm beneath her hoodie.

Once they actually pull up outside school, Max vanishes in a hurry, arms wrapped tight around his duffel bag. Furiosa can't say that she blames him. Every eye in the school seems to stare at her as she steps off the bus. She hates it, fucking hates them all _looking_ at her like she's some kind of wild animal let loose in their midst. Her entire life, people have been _watching_ her, expecting her to _entertain_ them at the end of her leash. The anger bubbles at the back of her throat and she has to swallow hard to force it down. 

Slit stands with his Warboys ten feet away. His eyes scorch the back of her neck.

It doesn't matter. They don't matter. Slit doesn't matter. Max has agreed to teach her. The knowledge is like a shield and a compass in one, and for the first time since the bullet entered Joe's brain and came out the other side, she feels like she knows what she's doing.

*

Principal James' office is as quaint and country as the rest of Green Valley. He has pictures of his children hugging farm animals on his desk. The lamp looks like a relic from the 70s. There is a hatstand in the corner and a mantelpiece clock over a non-existent fireplace behind him.

Furiosa sits in the bottlegreen guest chair, watching the broad man scribble at paperwork. She counts the steady seconds of her life ticking by and tries not to feel small.

“Miss Jobassa,” he says, signing off with a flourish. He clicks his pen and puts it in a lumpy clay pot that might have been intended to be an elephant. Then he folds his hands carefully in front of him. His eyes are serious. “I have spoken to Mr Rockatansky. I have his version of events. Now I want yours.”

Furiosa picks at the thumb of her prosthetic, flicking the plastic joint back and forth while her greyhound-mind chases off. She hadn't thought to speak to Max about it on the bus, too busy pursuing her own goal. But this is suddenly part of it too; if she doesn't play this right, doesn't play _James_ right, then Max gets suspended – maybe even expelled – and there goes Furiosa's plan to become the guardian her sisters need.

The power is in her hands. She can do this.

“We – We were on the roof. After lockdown. I needed some space.”

“You needed a smoke,” Principal James says. Furiosa shrugs her shoulders, doesn't deny it. “Mr Rockatansky was already there?”

She flicks her eyes up, trying to judge whether that's a lead or a hint or what. His face might as well be carved from stone. “Yes,” she decides. The less she has to lie, the easier it will be. Of course, the less she has to speak, the less she has to lie. “We talked.”

“About?”

“Lockdown. School shootings. Stuff like that.”

“Uh huh. And how did this lead to a fight?”

_Flick-flick_ goes the little plastic thumb, in time with the clock. Another minute of her life has passed. “He said he knew how to fight. He could stop someone. I asked him to show me.”

“So you attacked him? Or he attacked you?”

Furiosa shifts in her seat, glancing out the window at the thin spring morning. She's missing English right now. She wonders if Max is there – he missed Math – and whether she can get notes from him. “Both? It's – hard to remember.”

“Because you had concussion. Miss Jobassa, you realise that this sounds incredibly suspect.”

“We just got carried away!” She makes herself look at him directly. It's like her stomach is trying to eat itself she's so anxious, but she clenches her jaw and scowls to hide it. _He's just a man, an ordinary man. He won't hurt me. He's not **him**._

Principal James leans back in his creaking chair, fingers steepling, and purses his lips. The clock tick-tocks on the mantel: another minute survived. She doesn't know where to look, _how_ to look, when everything is hanging in the balance. If he disbelieves her, if he sends Max away … 

Finally, he heaves a great sigh. “I can't have students fighting in my school. You want to learn to fight, you join the wrestling club. Rockatansky too. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes.” Relief floods through Furiosa, weakening her spine til she feels her ribs might collapse in on themselves. Levering to her feet, she slings her bag over her shoulder and is out the door riding a wave of victory, just as the bell rings.

*

Between English and lunch is Furiosa's favourite lesson: autoshop. She likes it best because it has a _purpose_. None of these pointless class debates on the symbolism in 'The Great Gatsby', or the reasons for Pearl Harbour. Just a broken car, a mechanic's creeper, and a box of tools. At the end of the lesson, if the car is more roadworthy than it was at the start, she knows she's done well.

And Furiosa is good. She learns quickly, and she's not afraid of getting dirt under nails or in her hair like some of the guys. Every time Ace inspects her work, he gives an approving nod. (The name on her class schedule says 'Mr Craig Jones' but that's not how he introduced himself, and that's not what anyone calls him. She doesn't ask why.) He hadn't been sure of her when she started – she took shop because it was the only elective that fit her peculiar timetable, _and_ she was the only girl as well – so his favour kindles a warm little ball of happiness she tucks carefully inside her chest.

That he's a man, and that she appreciates his attention, sits uneasily in her if she thinks about it too much. Furiosa chooses not to think about it. There are more than enough other problems to occupy her mind.

She is sorting through her toolbox when she hears the disturbance, Slit and his Warboy partner – the one with the vivid blue eyes – nudging each other, pointing and muttering. She glances up and spies Max loitering in the doorway. Ace wanders over and they speak together, heads bowed. 

Then Ace points straight at Furiosa.

Max meanders around the spilt guts of a half dozen cars before he reaches her, duffel back on his shoulder rather than across his middle like armour. The dim lighting in the garage hides the worst of the scratches across his face. He tongues his lip and twitches his head.

Behind, by the door, Ace watches them with folded arms corded with muscle. 

Furiosa lifts her chin in half a nod. Scanning the car with narrowed eyes, Max drops his bag besides hers and rubs his palms on his jeans. “You any good?” Furiosa asks. He shrugs one shoulder. Narrowing her eyes, Furiosa grabs a spare blue coverall off the wall to her left and tosses it at him. “Brake rotors are fucked.” He wrestles it on over his clothes, stuffing his jacket into his duffel with a sour glare at Slit; Furiosa catches it from the corner of her eye and smiles. 

The time slides away from her too fast, as it always does in this class. She loses track, forgets to keep count; there's only the tool in her hand, metal made skin-warm like it's an extension of herself more than the cold weak prosthetic, and the car with its myriad of faults, every last one of which she is capable of fixing. Sweaty, smeared in engine grease and grit, her arms _shaking_ from exertion, the bell for lunch rings and Furiosa lets her head thunk back against the mechanic's creeper, breathing hard. Her spine clicks as she flexes her aching shoulders. This is a sensation she loves: muscles burning, lungs sucking down cold clean air, blood thrumming through her veins. The car is closer to roadworthy than it was an hour ago. The feeling inside her is tremulous and wary and sweet. 

She arches her back again with a grunt of satisfaction.

Beside her, Max tightens the last bolt, hums, and places the wrench in his coverall pocket. When he rolls his head to look at her, his eyes are blue and calm as a still pond. He blinks, seeming surprised to see her, another human being, under the car with him. She kind of knows how he feels. For sixty minutes they worked side-by-side with barely a word between them, holding clips and sliding on rotors and securing brake pads. She's never felt so peaceful this close to another person before. 

Someone BANGS on the roof of the car loud as a gunshot. Furiosa flinches hard, knocking her forehead against the undercarriage. Max mutters a curse under his breath and frowns at her. He lifts his hand to check her brow and she sees it, sees it coming, tracks it with wide frozen eyes as it skirts over her shoulder towards her face and her pulse is suddenly racing and her mouth is ash-dry and she is laying next to a man and he is _going to touch her_.

_Not again, not again, never again –_

Furiosa launches the creeper out from under the car, tumbles off it with jarring force to her knees before staggering upright. The creeper clatters to one side. Slit's snigger vanishes out the door. And oh, the world is spinning, spinning; Furiosa rests her hands on her knees and stares hard at an oil patch on the floor, listens to her heart thundering in her ears as the room wavers. 

On squeaking wheels, Max rolls out in slow inches, keeps his hands on his belly and his eyes locked on her face. Furiosa gasps and gasps, stomach cramped and sweat turned clammy and sour. 

“Hey, um, Furiosa. Um. Sit. You're – gonna pass out. Sit.”

It's her legs that decide, dumping her on her ass. It does feel better, more secure.

“Breathe,” Max says.

She wants to snap at him, _What do you think I'm fucking doing?_ , but her throat _hurts_ and her lungs _hurt_ and breathing shouldn't be such a fucking battle.

It's just a panic attack, she tells herself, while some bastard stabs knives into her gut and tightens a rope around her neck and prods her spine with a live wire. It's just a panic attack. She's done this before: at the hospital and at the shelter and busing across country. It'll pass. It'll pass. She just has to endure.

It does pass. Eventually, though how many minutes she's been absent she can't say. Furiosa shudders and shakes and grits her teeth through the worst of it, and slowly her heart quits trying to bruise itself against her sternum, her lungs actually do something with all the air they're heaving in. The room stops revolving around her until, finally, she can look up without wanting to be violently sick. 

Max is still laying on the creeper, hands folded on his belly, staring at the ceiling.

His eyes flicker over Furiosa as she rises to her feet, unsteady as a newborn colt. Her knees want to give out but she locks them hard, snarls at her own pathetic weakness. She is fucking _livid_ : with Max, with Slit, with herself. It's been _weeks_ since she made her way to The Greenhouse. Months since she broke her left arm enough to get free and took that gun and – 

Max sits up from the abs, draws his knees in and rests his wrists on each. Watches her with hooded eyes as she stumbles to her bag. She rips open the hidden pocket and pulls out a packet of Oreos – cheap sugar rush, that's what she needs. There's a blister pack of pills in there too, leftovers from when this was almost a daily occurrence, but Furiosa leaves them, drops the bag and slumps onto a stool. The cookies are dry and powdery, sticking in her throat when she swallows too fast. She washes them down with greedy gulps of water and waits for her body to catch up with her head.

Fuck this. Fuck Max. Fuck Slit and his fucking childish fascination with pissing her off. Fuck herself for letting him. She needs to be better than this. Stronger, tougher, harder. How is she meant to look after her sisters if she has a fucking meltdown every time she's near a man. _Get a fucking grip, Furiosa!_

The door swings open. Furiosa barely has time to brace for Slit coming to gloat before her brain registers it's actually Ace. He blinks in surprise at the pair of them. “What are you still doing here? Lunch is nearly over.”

Half an hour of her life missing. Fuck. She hasn't had a bad one like that since she arrived in Green Valley. She shoots a wide-eyed look at Max, who nods once and stands with only a little more grace than she did. “Just finishing up. Lost track of time.”

“Yeah?” Ace stares hard at them both, Max with his hands open in front of him, Furiosa hunched over on the stool, legs trembling. She nods, and wills him to believe it. Ace sighs and scrubs a hand across his bald head. “Fine. Get going. Y'need to eat something.” Max starts popping the clasps of his coveralls until Ace waves a hand. “No, leave 'em. Bring 'em back later.”

Furiosa clenches her jaw and forces herself to stand. Slinging both her bag and his across his back, Max weighs her up with pursed lips as if debating how much support she needs. Furiosa remembers him helping her after their fight, remembers that his arm was strong against her back, remembers that it wasn't _awful_. She glares anyway, and takes a step, and another, knowing she appears anything but casual to Ace watching her slow traversal but fuck it, she's moving under her own power. That's enough for now. 

Max holds the door open.

“Rockatansky, say hello to your grandfather for me.”

Max's head jerks sharply down like he's been hit.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Furiosa visits Max's house, determined to learn how to fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had so much help with this chapter. Thank you hugely to yourdykeinshiningarmor, infinitefuriosa, primarybufferpanel, youkaiyume, silver_89: I couldn't have finished this without you!

Nettie pulls the bus to a halt outside The Greenhouse. Furiosa can see it through the condensation, angular but welcoming, brown picket fence and bare trellises up the painted olive walls.

“Your stop,” Nettie calls.

Furiosa glances at Max, who shrugs one shoulder, frowning hard. Her hand is still trembling and her stomach hasn't stopped cramping since autoshop; she _knows_ she should go inside, eat something plain and lie down for a long rest.

But Slit blew her a kiss before he got off at his stop, and she's been chewing on that insult til her jaw aches.

Nettie glares around the side of her seat. “I ain't got all day.”

Furiosa bristles at the tone. “I'm going to his house!”

The bus doors slam shut. “You could've fuckin' said.” Nettie hits the gas and they lurch forward. The Greenhouse slides past the window.

Furiosa takes soothing breaths through her nose and wills her legs to stop shaking. She tries to predict what Max's house will look like but, snatching furtive glances of him from the corner of her eye, she realises with a sick jolt that she doesn't know him well enough to guess. She tongues her lip, wincing at the salty sting of the split, and pictures Toast curled up small in her bed this morning. 

As they wind along empty roads, Max thumps his boots on the floor in a jittery tattoo, hands twisting and pulling at his duffel, bottom lip wedged bloodless under his teeth. He flinches every time they slam over a pothole. Furiosa has never been this far out before; the old engine warbles as they angle uphill, edging closer to the thick spread of evergreens.

The house they stop at is the exact opposite of The Greenhouse. Furiosa stares through the window at a squat building, clapboard walls almost black with age and weather, caged by a brace of dark wooden barns and outbuildings. The asphalt driveway is cracked and scarred. With no lights on in the windows despite the early onset of a cloud-heavy darkness, it looks abandoned.

Furiosa stands, hoists her bag over her shoulder and takes three steps towards the front of the bus. She pauses when only her boots sound against the floor. Max is still in his seat, jacket collar brushing his ears, fingers twisted in the straps of his duffel, scowling hard at his knees.

“Max?”

His head snaps up. Furiosa jolts back a step, but instead of launching at her, the tension in his shoulders eases. He stands and gestures for her to lead the way. Stomach a mass of quivering nerves, Furiosa reluctantly turns her back on him. His scuffing footsteps shiver down her spine. _This is for Toast,_ she thinks. _Toast, Cheedo, Dag, Capable, Angharad ..._ The image of them propels her past Nettie's blue-eyed stare and down the steps.

The doors _thwap_ shut and Nettie rumbles away; Furiosa spares a quick thought to the long walk she'll have to take to get back to The Greenhouse. Then cold water splats on her forehead. Beside her, Max grunts. When Furiosa looks, she sees something like a smile hidden in his scruffy beard as he holds his hand out palm-down and stares at the water striking his skin. There's something so child-like, so fascinated in his expression, as if rain is a rare and precious event. It tugs at a sympathetic memory in Furiosa: the front door opening and the blast of outside air and wet on her face for the first time in years.

Just when her hoodie is becoming uncomfortably damp, Max leads the way across the pockmarked asphalt. Unlike Mel and Madi's open porch with its comfortable bench, the deep overhanging roof looms above Furiosa like a ravenous maw. The warped wooden steps creak underfoot. Furiosa is shivering; she puts it down to the wet and cold.

At the front door, hand on the knob, Max turns to her. His mouth opens. Furiosa waits, gut writhing in circles. But nothing comes out of his throat. With a harsh sigh, Max glares at the paint peeling off the door, twists the handle and steps over the threshold.

Furiosa's legs refuse to move. Her knees are locked tight, thigh muscles twitching, caught between conflicting impulses: to move forward, or to run far away.

Half swallowed in shadow, Max stops and turns. Eyes hooded and face darkly blank, he waits for Furiosa to make her decision.

_Toast. Angharad. I will do anything ..._

Sheer force of will drives Furiosa forward. She closes the door behind her, and the dim narrow hallway consumes them both. The house reeks of damp, mildew and tobacco, strong enough to make Furiosa's eyes water. Slowly adjusting to the dark, she follows Max along the hallway with its peeling wallpaper and faded rug towards a kitchen she can just see at the end, stepping lightly because he does. It feels dead – a dead house.

It reminds her of the attic.

Following Max, their pace slows to a nail-biting shuffle. There must be someone here, someone Max doesn't want to attract the attention of, yet the whole house is silent but for the drumming rain on the roof. Furiosa can barely breathe around the tight knot in her throat. Then, under her right boot, the uneven floorboard groans.

Max freezes. Goosebumps burst along the back of Furiosa's neck.

There is nothing but the rattle of rain and her heart pounding in her ears. The house wheezes in the squall.

On the balls of his feet, Max creeps forward.

Oh God, what is she doing? Anxiety grips her by the throat. She is in a strange house with no idea who else is here. Judging by Max's reactions, she does not want to meet anyone.

Max peers around the door jamb. Furiosa covers her mouth with her hand to disguise the sharp gasps that keep trying to stagger out. Knees bent ready to take her out the door at a sprint, she watches and waits, counting down the seconds. _Five. Ten._

 _Fifteen._ The tension in his shoulders begins to ease. When he looks back at her, Max's face is pale with relief. He jerks his head towards the kitchen, turns carefully on his heel and tiptoes the rest of the way down the hall.

It takes a second for Furiosa to shake off the paralysis of fear. Her legs, unlocked now, tremble as she shuffles forward, flinching at every minute creak of the floorboards. At the doorway she stops and peeks into the gloom; she needs to know what, or who, it was that distressed Max so much.

The grey light trickles in through grimy windows, barely illuminating a living room. There's not much in the way of furniture, and what there is seems as old and worn as the hallway would suggest. The dominating feature is a fireplace on the inside wall, directly in front of her. The mantel is devoid of any picture frames or trinkets, and the fire is dead. There's a thick rug on the floor; it might once have been patterned, but without the benefit of light it looks plain as asphalt. Only one chair sits opposite the fire, angled to catch a view of the doorway as well, and it is in this chair that a man rests.

She supposes this must be the grandfather Ace spoke of, though he looks nothing like Max. Bone-thin where Max is brawny, the old man is so wrinkled it's almost like his face is folding in on itself. His eyes are shut, his mouth squashed in a way that implies there aren't many teeth left in his gums. There are more liver spots than hair on his head. As she watches, he shuffles in his chair, skinny arms folding across his little pot-belly, snuffling a breathy snore.

“Furiosa,” Max hisses. He's waiting in the kitchen, and though the light is off she can see he's nervous.

She's used to danger coming from bigger men: taller, wider, stronger. She's used to feeling threatened in her smaller, weaker body. But Max, twitching on the balls of his feet, is clearly _afraid_ and she doesn't understand why, when the man in the chair looks so frail.

She leaves the sleeping old man behind. Max breathes a sigh of relief that prickles the thin skin under Furiosa's eyes.

Max grabs a set of big heavy iron keys off a hook, the kind that wouldn't have looked out of place in the Old West. Furiosa's nerves spike again. “Where are we going?”

“Out. Away.” His answer is gruff, but Max softens it with a small smile. It shouldn't be enough to reassure her, but somehow it eases the tight constriction of her ribs. Then, unlocking the back door with a key already in the lock, he leads Furiosa out onto the rickety porch. The rain is coming down even heavier, drizzling through the bad caulking of the porch roof. They share a look of resignation. Swinging her bag up over her head, Furiosa takes a breath of the sharp wet air and launches off the porch just after Max. 

They squelch past small lakes in the dirt. At the barn furthest from the house Max skids to a stop. He wrestles with a thick padlock on the side door, chunky keys smearing his hands red with rust. Furiosa blinks up at the swirling grey clouds. The air is spitefully cold against the back of her throat. She licks spatters of rain from her lips and bares her teeth at the sky. This is the sort of weather she loves, when the air is so heavy she can feel every inch of her skin. Fingers prickling and shivers down her spine and her toes bizarrely hot in her boots: these are her edges and they make her _real_.

The lock _clunks_ open. Max shoulders the door inwards, scraping across the floor where the wood has swollen. Furiosa takes a bracing breath and follows him in. She shoves the door shut behind her.

It's pitch black inside the barn, but it doesn't smell like animals. It smells like – shop class. Furiosa sniffs it in deep, gasoline and oil and metal, and the worst of her nerves fizzle away. Max fumbles a switch somewhere to Furiosa's left and high overhead a row of long, dangling lights buzz into life.

It's a vehicle graveyard. Carcasses of tractors, bulldozers, combine harvesters, motorbikes, cars: rusted and broken, slumped on flat tires, their innards gutted. A final resting place for damaged, unwanted things. Furiosa's fingers itch for her toolbox at school.

Max heads straight down the middle of the barn, turning right just after an original VW Beetle that's little more than rust in car shape. Furiosa follows slowly, eyes swivelling back and forth; her footsteps echo between the rotten behemoths and all the way up to the high roof. It's a massive space, all the safety of being indoors without the claustrophobic press of walls. She could wander for days in here and never get bored. No one would ever find her if she didn't want them to.

Except Max. But since meeting him, there seems to be an 'except Max' clause for many things in her life.

She finds him in a circle clear of farm machinery, his back to her as he kneels in the dust. There's the _snatch_ of a match lighting, and then cheerfully crackling paper. When he stands, she can see the fireplace he's built out of old bricks and the cast iron post dangling from a rod stretched over a smoking bundle of wood. Blinking, Furiosa takes it all in: the stack of cans at the edge of the circle, the bottles of water in a neat row away from the heat, a solitary car bucket seat sat lopsided by the fire with its covers split and half the padding sticking out. A few yards away is an old muscle car. It might have been a thing of beauty, once, something low-slung and predatory, but the doors and hood and roof are dented, matte black paint chipped to hell and all its windows smashed.

There's a nest of blankets tumbled in the shadowed back seat.

Furiosa thinks about the old man snoring in his recliner and the slump of Max's shoulders as the tension tumbled off them. She thinks about a teenager hacking at his own hair, and a lonely figure hiking six miles across muddied fields against a rolling storm. It aches like a punch to the gut.

“Must have been a nice car.”

Max, pouring half a bottle of water into the iron pot, glances up at her with sharp eyes and a downturned mouth. Furiosa makes her expression flat, careless, enough to disarm him. “My pa's.” He hangs the pot over the fire. While he rummages in the front of the busted car, Furiosa skims it over again; it doesn't look like a car crash, not the kind that could kill a person, at any rate. The obvious question sits heavy on her tongue but she won't let it out – it would invite too much in return, and the list of things she is comfortable discussing is massively shorter than the list she's not.

Max turns on his heel, two mugs hooked in the fingers of his right hand. “Coffee?” Furiosa shrugs, nods, and lowers on to the crooked car seat. She didn't realise how cold she was until she feels the heat sparking against her face. A shiver judders down her spine. She holds her hand up to the flames and flexes her fingers. The golden light dances on her skin, but monstrous shadows lick up the walls. “It's dangerous,” she says, gesturing from the fire to the battalion of vehicles with their oily innards visible, then up to the strands of smoke braiding between the electric lights. Furiosa's eyes are beginning to water at the acrid sting.

“Mm. It's wet out. Can't light a fire in the rain.”

Anyone else, she might have been offended, but Max says it so matter-of-factly that she knows he means no insult.

With deft movements that speak of repetition, Max hooks the pot off its rod and pours steaming water into the mugs, releasing the dark roasted smell of coffee to mingle with the tang of oil and iron. He hands her one, black and bitter and nothing like the creamy stuff Madi serves up at the weekend. Furiosa sips at it while the heat thaws her fingers, watching as Max chugs his down, apparently impervious to near-boiling water. He leans back against the battered car, rubbing his hands over his jeans like he’s not sure what else to do with them. Furiosa puts her mug on the floor, mostly full, with a muted _clink_. It’s too hot anyway, and she has better things to do with her time than wait for it to cool.

Licking coffee from her lips, she levers to her feet, throat tight and stomach churning again all of a sudden. This is it. This is the point separating her from her helpless past. Finally, she's going to be able to look after herself, look after her sisters, so that no bastard can ever hurt them again. The anticipation tingles in her veins.

Max scratches his beard.

Furiosa waits.

Max frowns. “I don't – know. Where to start.”

Pursing her lips, Furiosa thinks for a moment. “Show me the arm thing you did to Slit?”

Max nods slowly. “Okay. But –” He looks her solidly in the eye. “You gotta say. If.” His hand sweeps in some all-encompassing gesture that she understands clear as if she could read his mind.

Weirdly, though, she knows she won't panic this time. Max has already done his worst to her – punched her in the face – _concussed_ her – but he hasn't taken advantage in any way. All his actions were out of his own fear. And if he can teach her to fight, Furiosa is willing to endure a hell of a lot.

It's as close to trust as she's ever felt for someone outside the circle of her sisters, but all she says is, “Yeah.”

Nodding once, Max pushes off from the car and gestures to a space just within the glow of firelight but away from any obstacles. Furiosa follows and stands three yards away. Max's mouth twitches. “Y'need to be closer.”

Scowling, Furiosa shuffles forward. And again at his gesture. It was different under the car, being close to him; then they had a purpose, something to focus on other than each other. Here, the purpose _is_ to focus on each other. Furiosa thinks of Toast and Angharad and makes herself take the final step forward until she is just two feet from him. Max gives a thumbs up.

“Hit me,” he says.

Furiosa doesn't pause to think about it, she just forms a fist and lets it fly, and the rush she feels is glorious – until Max has her hand trapped in his and is bending it down at the wrist to an agonising degree. He steps forward and her knees go weak at the spike of pain through her arm to her shoulder.

He lets go before she can get her wits about her to fight him.

“Did you see?” he asks.

Panting, Furiosa shakes her arm out and glares at him. “That fucking hurt!”

“Did you see how I did it?”

“You were too fast!” Her legs are trembling again, stomach a writhing knot. The skin of her hand prickles where he grabbed her.

Max frowns. “Hit me again. Slower. Watch what I do.”

The temptation to smack him hard is strong enough to taste, but Furiosa isn't an idiot; she knows he's probably expecting it, and what good would it do her? She's here to learn. So, in slow motion, she punches with her fist, watching carefully as Max grabs it, _how_ he holds it, the way he bends it down and steps into her personal space. It doesn't hurt as much without the force of speed behind it.

“Got it?” he asks. She nods. “You try.”

He punches her even slower than she did him. It's surreal, her internal clock ticking away at regular speed and his fist gliding through the chill air. She catches his fist and he pauses. Her hand is much smaller than his. “Hmm. Gotta – bend it down.” She tries, she really does, but his wrist is solid and doesn't move despite her straining.

“It's not working!” she snaps, and lets go of him like his touch burns.

Max grunts. “Too advanced. You're not strong enough.”

That insult stings. “Not my fault.”

“Could fix it.” He narrows his eyes, scanning her head to toe. Furiosa crosses her arms. “Eat more meat. Work out. Could get stronger.”

She considers that for a moment, and then shakes the thought from her head. She's not waiting until she's more muscular to learn how to fight back; she needs to know now.

Max seems to read her mind. “Try this. Punch me.” She does, half-speed, and he knocks her arm crosswise to her body, stepping right inside her reach. Furiosa shoves him back hard, teeth bared.

“Warn me!”

Max holds up his hands in silent apology. Then he gestures for her to do it again, so she does, watching closely as he again knocks her arm crosswise and steps – carefully – into her personal space. “Could knee him in the groin here.” He makes absolutely no move to demonstrate this.

They reset, and this time he aims a punch at her. Furiosa knocks it sideways. “Move your feet,” Max says, and shows her. She tries it again, blocking his arm, twisting her hips, and then stepping into his space for the second attack.

They go again, and again, each time a little faster. Furiosa is already breathing hard, and then they swap sides, starting slow and working up faster. Her muscles thrum hot beneath her skin, her mind blurring as the movements become rote.

“Good,” Max says, when sweat is beading at Furiosa's hairline. “Use it for punches, knives, stuff like that.”

“A gun?”

He shuffles uneasily. “Maybe. You might get shot.” Jogging to the far side of the circle, Max grabs a bottle of water and takes a long swallow, then offers it to Furiosa. She sips little mouthfuls, just enough to freshen her up.

“Someone like Slit might come from behind,” she says, handing the bottle back. Max places it on the giant wheel of a nearby tractor. “How do I fight off that?”

That's how _they_ got her, the first time, in the welcoming parlour, her mother on her knees in just her underwear and Joe leering that godawful smile. She'd scratched and wriggled and _screamed_ but it didn't do any good. She remembers the _smack_ that silenced her mother before Furiosa was dragged upstairs.

“Helps to be stronger,” Max says. Furiosa scowls at him and he shrugs. “Can show you some tricks but –” He scuffs the back of his head, avoiding her eye. “Gotta get close.”

Furiosa grits her teeth and nods. “Fine.”

He tries to show her what it looks like, first, gesturing and pointing. This would be easier with a third person, but they make do. Her attacking him is almost laughable: she can just get her hands to meet around the broad swell of his chest and arms, but it's a pointless exercise with her prosthetic. Frustrated, Furiosa huffs and turns her back, riding the shiver up her spine.

“Just do it.”

So Max does, scuffing his feet deliberately on the floor, bringing his arms far into her vision before he wraps them across her body. Furiosa's heart rate skyrockets, vision tunnelling so fast it makes her dizzy. She is trapped between the solid chest at her back and the solid arms at her front. Panic claws at her throat.

Max lets go and steps away.

“-sa. Furiosa. Breathe. Breathe. Furiosa.”

She does, a shuddering gasp that scratches all the way down. Max scuttles into view, head ducked down to look into her face. Furiosa forces in another breath, and another, _wills_ herself to a calmer state. “Hey,” he says when she can focus on him.

“Do it again.”

Max shakes his head, forehead wrinkling.

Furiosa frowns. “I need to get used to it. I – Please. Help me. I need to get used to it.”

Someone else might say that no one needs to. Someone else might ask her why she needs to. But Max only sucks his lower lip into his mouth before nodding once. He sidles behind her, boots heavy on the concrete. “Ready?”

Furiosa nods.

His arms come around her, a little faster this time, and the adrenaline gushes through her bloodstream. Furiosa squeezes her eyes shut and freezes, the battle gone internal as she fights the panic. Max's arms don't give an inch for all the long, long minutes it takes for Furiosa's body to adjust to their feel, to him immovable at her back. She's lost track of time but, when her mind clears of the initial burst of survival chemicals, she clocks back in, syncs her breathing to the internal rhythm. _In for ten. Out for twenty. Again. Another minute survived. You're okay. Max won't hurt you._ A silly thing to think about a man she's known three days at best, but reassuring nonetheless.

“Alright?” his voice rumbles through her ribs.

“Yeah.” She's pleased to sound confident. “How do I fight you off?”

“Hm. Couple ways. Drop down and elbow back.” She does, and finds her elbow jabbing between his gut and his groin. She stands and ducks into his arms again. “Slam your head back then drop and run.” She tries it, in slow motion again, feels the bulb of his nose scraping through the fuzz of her hair. “'s good this is short. Nothing to grab.”

“Why was yours so long?”

He huffs a breath that shivers warm and moist across the back of her neck. “Forgot.” He lets go suddenly, stepping away; she feels those cold places where he was pressed close. “Faster this time.”

Max grabs her quick, arms wrapping like steel bands around her front. Furiosa's mind buzzes blank with cold-sweat terror. “Drop. Elbow,” Max growls in her ear, and she goes, straight to her knees, elbow driving back into the meat of his thigh. Then she sprints for the shadows between two tractors. It takes a second, hidden, for her to come back to herself. Max is waiting in the firelight, hand rubbing at his leg where she hit him. She takes a breath and steps out of the dark.

“Good.” He twitches a little smile. “Again.”

Twelve times they run the drill. Each time, the fear is a little less consuming, her reactions faster and stronger. Max gets an elbow to the gut, the thigh, the nuts; he grunts and mutters and, with the last one, drops to his knees with his hands pressed between his legs, face a picture of agony.

“Should get you a cup,” Furiosa says.

With watery eyes he squints up at her, wheezing. “A what?”

“Didn't you ever play baseball?” But Max groans and folds in on himself like he might be sick. “Maybe we should stop. For today.” Max nods his head against his knees.

Furiosa collapses into the car seat with a _whuff_ of exploding dust. Sweaty skin prickling, she closes her eyes and takes stock. Her legs are shaking, a tremor from hips to ankles. Her stub inside its prosthetic feels rubbed raw. Her shoulders _hurt_. She coughs to clear her throat and even that pulls at tenderised muscles in her back.

But her mind is whirling with new information and that is good.

She drifts, almost like sleeping but not quite, aware of Max shuffling around on the floor, his vocal grunts of displeasure as he rises to his feet, the scuff of boots when he hobbles around the fire in the direction of the car.

“Hey.”

Furiosa opens her eyes. Max is watching her carefully, bottle of water in hand and a frown on his face.

“I'm okay.”

She really, really is. She flexes her back and smiles.

Grunting, Max tosses her the bottle. Then he sits by the fire with ginger movements, hauling his duffel bag into his lap. Out come textbooks and pens and notepads. Furiosa considers her own bag two feet away, and the homework lurking within. Instead, she takes a mouthful of the cold water; it hurts her teeth when she swallows, and sits heavy in her belly. She'll just have to get up early to conjugate Spanish verbs.

It's nice to sit in the quiet barn, listening to the rain rattle the roof and the fire crackle as it dwindles down. Peaceful: feeling her muscles ache and her heartbeat slow. When she closes her eyes again, she can perfectly capture the movements she's learned, can feel the way her arms and legs and hips are meant to move. She knows what it is to be trapped in a man's grip, but now she knows how to break free of it.

Max growls and dumps his books off his lap, scraping his hands back through his hair. Furiosa peers down at him. “Hey.” She tilts her head in a question.

Max rubs his eyes. “Don't get it.” He nudges a textbook with the toe of his boot.

It takes effort, but Furiosa manages to sit up. She's worked muscles in her abdomen she didn't know she had. Upside down, she can deduce that it's some kind of science homework. “Junior?” He sits with her in Math and she noticed him in English, but her class schedule is a complete mess – his might be the same.

“Yeah. Got kept back.”

“Me too.” For a split second she's breathless with the fear that he'll _ask_ , but all he does is share a look of commiseration, and she's a little light-headed with the relief. “I can help.”At his quizzical expression she shrugs one-shouldered . “For the fight lessons.” His silence continues, and Furiosa's cheeks crackle with heat. “I'm not stupid. Just because I'm not in Chem doesn't mean I can't help you.”

“No, no.” Max reaches out a hand to halt her anger. “It's not that.”

Wincing at the ache of her muscles, Furiosa eases off the seat to the concrete next to Max and scans the academic detritus surrounding them, pens and notepads and scrappy worksheets. She picks up the battered second-hand textbook and lays it in the crook of her prosthetic arm. Max chews his lip and scowls at it, though his expression softens when Furiosa ducks her head into view and gives him a small smile.

“I don't know _how_ ,” he sighs. “Never been to school.”

Furiosa blinks. “Not even grade school?” A shake of Max's head. “But then, how –?” It doesn't make sense. He probably shouldn't even be in mainstream, never mind being thrown into Junior year.

“Gramps enrolled me.” As if that were answer enough.

With narrowed eyes, Furiosa scans the circle with its DIY campfire and the tins and bottled water and the nest of blankets tumbling out the back of the broken car, and realises it kind of is.

“I'll help. Every lunchtime. And after every fight lesson.” She meets his eyes, jaw firm and chin lifted.

Max opens his mouth to answer.

Her bag begins to chime. Furiosa stares in confusion before she realises it's her repaired phone. Adrenaline spiking through her veins, she dumps the book in Max's lap and scuffles on her knees to the ringing sound. She wrenches it out of the side pocket and hits the green button. “Hello? Hello?”

“ _It's Mel._ ”

Worry clenches tight in Furiosa's chest. “Is it Angharad? Is she okay?”

“ _Everyone's fine. Where the hell are you?_ ”

“I – I'm at a friend's house.” She glances up at Max, who smiles – in his eyes more than his mouth.

Mel's breath gusts crackly and large down the line. “ _You should've told us. Jesus Christ. Do you have any idea? Cheedo won't stop crying. Toast is refusing to eat. Angharad's been worried sick._ ”

Furiosa can hear them in the background, shouting and wailing, Madi pleading for calm. She tucks her leg close to her chest and rests her chin in the divot of her knee. There’s a rock in her gut where her stomach should be, and all her muscles are cramping round it.

She coughs her voice into existence. “I lost track of time. Are they okay?”

But Mel steamrolls right over her. Furiosa swallows back bile. “ _Stay there. I'm coming to get you. What's the address?_ ”

“Uh. The Rockatansky farm?” she croaks, with a quick look at Max for confirmation.

Mel hisses. “ _That old bastard. Fan-fucking-tastic._ ” She hangs up.

Goosebumps prickle all along Furiosa's arms and across the back of her neck. She feels sick. She just – she didn't think. She needed to start learning, right away, and nothing else entered her mind. Now her sisters are panicking and her fosters are angry. Angry enough to take drastic measures? The dread wells up like blood in a wound.

Still and silent as a statue, Max watches her stuff the phone into her bag and climb to her feet. Her legs are heavy as lead. “She's – My carer – I have to go.”

Max rises too. He pours water over the fire – it spits and steams but the light goes out all the same – and then he leads her through the maze of machinery to the side door. The rain has slowed to a drizzle, but it's damn cold, especially after the soporific heat of the fire. Furiosa shivers and tucks her flesh hand into the burrow of her armpit.

They go around the house rather than through it. All is dark and silent, the windows like black holes, but it's hard to shake the feeling of being watched.

Under a tree by the driveway entrance they shelter from the rain, bent towards each other, their breath fogging in quick puffs. Furiosa suppresses the shivers as best she can. Squinting at her, Max shuffles with his hands in his leather jacket until he is blocking the worst of the wind. Out of the circle of machines, everything feels disjointed and raw, like she and Max had made a bubble for themselves that's just been rudely popped. The nerves in her face prickle and sting.

Headlights swerve up the road at speed, only slowing with an angry punch of brakes right at the drive entrance. Mel winds down her window. “In. Now.” She closes it just as fast against the rain.

Face burning, Furiosa can barely look at Max. “See you tomorrow,” she mutters, and dashes across the road. 

The heater is on in the car, hot enough to scorch her eyes dry. Mel waits for her to buckle her belt before twisting a u-turn.

“Why didn't you call? You think we wouldn't notice you missing?”

Furiosa bites her lip and stares at the rain-distorted image of Max in the wing mirror. It had honestly never occurred to her to call them. She was going to walk back, across the fields, and climb in through the window if the front door was locked. _No one noticed before_ , she wants to say, but doesn't. She takes slow, soothing breaths through her nose to the rhythm of the wipers.

“Christ, Furiosa. Do you know what the girls were thinking? First time Dag's spoken English in three days and all she would say was 'he got her'.”

Only Toast saw the body. How could she not, when brain and bone and blood were spattered over her? Dag heard the gunshot, saw Toast naked and speckled with gore, saw the gun heavy in Furiosa's hand, but not the mostly headless corpse.

“You owe them an apology.”

The guilt sparks into anger that roars under her skin. Apologise for what? Learning how to fight back? Learning how to protect them so that none of them would have to say 'he got her' again? Scowling, she turns to glare at Mel, who drives with ferocious intensity, all her movements sharp, her face carved in hard lines.

It wouldn't take much to make her snap. But to what end? 

Furiosa swallows words so loud they stick in her throat. Her pride, her anger, her guilt, she stuffs it all down. She can't afford to let her emotions dictate. She needs to keep the peace. She needs to _stay_.

They're just syllables in her mouth; it doesn't cost anything to string them together. “You're right. I'm sorry.” Mel's face relaxes by degrees, and with it goes the knot of tension in Furiosa's belly. She sighs and turns to rest her head against the seatbelt strap, eyes drifting out the shimmering window.

Max stands under that tree until the car is out of sight. Furiosa knows because she watches him in the wing mirror until she can't see any more.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Furiosa goes through the motions of a normal school day. She's surprised how much nicer everything is with Max at her back - even dealing with Slit is bearable.

For the first time since enrolling at Green Valley High, it's a _relief_ when Furiosa boards the bus. It’s a welcome escape from the brooding silence of her foster house this morning: Mel's sharp glare; Toast's anxious face; the paired reproach of Angharad and Capable.

Furiosa breezes right past Nettie's narrowed eyes – no doubt she caught an earful from Mel last night – and up the length of the bus. Max, huddled in his jacket against the cold, glances up. Furiosa's breath catches: there is something like a smile in the corners of his eyes.

“Okay?” he murmurs, as the bus jolts forward.

There'd been an uproar when she walked through the door ahead of Mel. Dag rattled out a string of Russian curses. Cheedo clung with both arms wrapped round Furiosa’s legs, sobbing into her knees. Pointing with force at her sisters, Toast shouted “I told you!” repeatedly at the top of her lungs. Madi wrung her hands, deep crevices carved across her forehead, as the microwave _dinged_. Angharad and Capable sagged against each other at the table, wan as ghosts but dark eyes fixed and accusing on Furiosa. 

Acid words gurgled up her throat, lay burning thick and acrid on her tongue. She gulped them back with too-big mouthfuls of her reheated dinner.

Toast didn't wait five minutes after lights-out before creeping up the attic stairs and into Furiosa's bed. This morning, Furiosa has bruised shins, scratched shoulders and shadows under her eyes to attest Toast’s nightmares. 

With a shrug and a nod, Furiosa says, “Yeah.” He doesn't need to know.

It is especially cold today, as if winter has returned. What tender shoots of spring had dared break the surface are gripped in brittle frost, and even the window is veined in spirals of ice. Furiosa stuffs her hand deep into the pocket of her coat, scrunches her toes in her boots to keep the circulation going. She's glad of the hood that keeps the chill off her shaved neck and exposed ears, but her nub prickles inside its cold plastic shell.

Beside her, Max shudders and shivers, shifting his legs restlessly. The tip of his nose is flushed red. He catches her looking, and frowns. “Beard was warm.”

Furiosa startles herself with a smile. Max's mouth twitches, eyes going soft.

The bus stops for the four students, entering alongside a blast of chilly air. Ignoring them is much easier, Furiosa finds as Nettie accelerates, now that she has someone else on which to concentrate. Not that she's _concentrating_ on Max, necessarily. It's just that her brain is not usually a pleasant place to be; it requires distraction. And Max is right there: rumbling a cough deep in his chest, or squinting out the window at the occasional passing truck or tractor. His jacket smells powerfully of leather, and his boots thunk and drag against the grimy floor. Everything he does is another distraction from her own twisted thoughts.

But unlike the other students, if she's caught looking, she knows he won't make it an issue.

And so she distracts her spiralling thoughts by looking, and listening, and breathing in Max, while the bus stops and starts and students hop up the steps like salmon swimming upstream, and the storm of memories and regrets calms a little.

Even Slit's noisy arrival doesn't make Furiosa's stomach clench half as much, especially because Nettie blocks his passage up the gangway with one wiry arm. “Your seat's here,” she says, gesturing to the front row. Slit's glare could melt steel – but Nettie is made of stronger stuff. “Or you can walk.” She stares him down until he sits. “And not a word out of your mouth, boy.”

Slit's expression darkens when he glances over his shoulder at the students staring at him. Furiosa realises she's smirking and pulls her coat hood lower to hide it. No point in inviting trouble, but she can still enjoy his humiliation.

Beside her, Max huffs a breath through his nose that she thinks might be his version of a laugh. 

In fact, now that she thinks about it, she's amazed at how much more mellow she feels, the slow pump of blood through her veins and the easy passage of air in her lungs, despite the frosty start to her morning at home. Every day since she arrived in Green Valley (every day since she and her mom were taken) she's had to battle against her body's instincts. Just being near to strangers, to _men_ , is enough to spike her adrenaline and kickstart her heart. Slit has made this worse at every given opportunity.

Yet here she is, sat next to a man who last night trapped her in his arms – and taught her how to fight back. The pungent smell of old leather is familiar, comforting. A flash of his blue eyes to hers makes her feel like she's not alone.

Arriving at school, Furiosa follows Max up the steps to the double front doors. On the way, she skirts past the Warboys. Slit has just assembled his court and is making mechanical noises with his mouth. He jerks his left arm in robotic movements, back-forth back-forth right in front of his hips. The football team howls with laughter, and a few glance at Furiosa striding by. She can guess who the punchline is. She bristles at the insult, but there's Max just ahead, waiting for her by the entrance, and – _focus elsewhere_.

Slit slips from her mind as she enters the warm school hallways.

*

When Furiosa enrolled at Green Valley High at the end of January, she and Madi sat with the guidance counsellor to discuss what classes she could and should take. At the time she didn't much care – still doesn't, really – so she agreed to whatever was suggested. Anything not to cause a problem. Anything to be able to stay with her sisters.

While she's officially been kept back for the Junior year she missed while in the attic, her class schedule is a peculiar mix of courses to get the credits she needs for graduation.

Strange. Graduation. For a long time she didn't think she'd ever reach the right age.

After homeroom she has Spanish – with the Freshmen, since at her old school she studied French, which isn't offered here. The work is simplistic and the kids are so _small_. And they _are_ kids: only a year older than Angharad, but miles younger than even Toast, who has seen so much, knows so many things an eight-year-old shouldn't know.

Furiosa sits silently at the back of the class, where the others aren't reminded of her Senior-sized body, and counts the minutes.

Algebra II is with the Juniors – “You might have to take a Sophomore course after school to catch up,” the guidance counsellor said, “but we'll worry about that next year.” Furiosa didn't remind her, or Madi, that Furiosa would be eighteen before then, and likely no longer enrolled – and Furiosa is relieved to see Max at the back of the class. He, too, is a little broader than the Juniors, carries himself differently, face worn in ways that these plump farm children don't understand. It makes them nervy; more than once in the lesson, furtive glances sneak to the back row.

Halfway through, Furiosa glances at Max's page and realises he has written absolutely nothing. He is scowling at his textbook. “Hey,” she murmurs under the dull hum of the heater behind them. Max twitches his head. With one eye on the teacher, Furiosa turns her workbook so that Max can see the answers. “Copy.”

He wavers for a few seconds before picking up his pen. In five minutes the page is full.

“Don't understand,” he mutters. Furiosa looks at the chicken-scratch handwriting, all the rows of equations scribbled out, a jumble of letters and symbols without meaning. She passed Algebra I with ease in her Freshman year (despite sweaty nights of little sleep), and she can pick up the advanced class easily enough. If Max has never been to school, he should be – at best – in Algebra I with the Freshmen.

There are creases marring his forehead like furrows in a ploughed field.

“I'll help.”

Max bites his lip and turns his head away.

*

Of all her lessons, Furiosa's least favourite is American Lit. It's a Junior class, which at least means she doesn't feel like an ogre in a sea of farm children, but it also contains Slit. Any exposure to him is enough to make her blood boil.

She sits by the door – small mercies – and right under the round wall clock. It's comforting to hear it ticking down the minutes until class is over. _The Great Gatsby_ isn't exatly a thick tome, but Furiosa hasn't the patience for it, nor all the pointless class discussions just mean she has to hear Slit's _hilarious_ comments for an hour every day.

Having Max behind her on the bus that first day made her tense as a bow, and that was _before_ he beat her to a pulp on the roof. Now, though, as Slit and his friend saunter last through the door, she can meet Slit's leer with a counter look of barely restrained disgust. Somehow, between the shovel incident under the bleachers and the evening in his barn, she knows that Max has her back the same way she has his.

Slit's expression transforms into a scowl. His eyes flicker over her head to Max. “Gotta watch this bitch, wildman.” His friend grins goofily from ear to ear.

Fist clenched and leg muscles bunching, Furiosa has to wrestle down the desire – the _need_ – to smack him across the face, though she can almost feel the satisfying bloom of pain in her knuckles.

It's not worth it. He's not worth the shit that would follow. She needs to be calm, cool. She needs to stay with her sisters. She needs to stay.

“Alright, guys, settle down,” Miss Walsh breezes into the room, late as always, sweeping Slit and his friend away to their front seats with a flutter of her hands. The heavy perfume she wears makes Furiosa's nose twitch. Behind her, Max sneezes.

“Hopefully you all completed your chapter questions for 'Gatsby'. If you could pass them to the front of your row and I'll collect them in.”

Furiosa pulls out the creased, coffee-stained worksheets from her bag. They smell a little of the cigarette she smoked while filling out the answers at dawn this morning when she could no longer confine herself to her bed.

The nightmares are ever-present, the fatigue all-consuming, but at least she has plenty of time in which to complete her homework. It's one way to avoid trouble.

When she turns to take Max's homework, she sees his desk is empty. He has a mulish set to his jaw.

She remembers the _crackle-pop_ of the fire and the stale smell that emanated from the lopsided bucket seat, and doesn't ask.

Tyler accepts Furiosa's worksheets and passes them to Ranae, who hands them to Mohamed, who gives them directly to Miss Walsh. She beams. “Thank you! Okay, while I'm sorting these out, start reading the next chapter and we'll discuss it after.”

She used to like reading. Moving from motel to motel with her mom, there were days when the only thing to do to keep from being bored out of her skull was read.

It's not as enjoyable now as it once had been. Two years in an attic with nothing to do but stare at the ceiling has rusted her fluency. It takes her twice as long as Tyler in front of her to read each page.

Behind her, there is only silence.

Miss Walsh is still fluffing through the homework sheets. Furiosa chances a glance over her shoulder. Hunched over, frowning hard, with one finger moving laboriously slow along the line, Max mouths the words to himself. His copy of the book is virtually rotting: water-marked and creased, black mold speckling the top of the pages.

At the sound of footsteps, Furiosa turns back to her book. Miss Walsh wafts past in a puff of fragrance.

“Max,” she murmurs. “Where's your homework?”

“... didn't do it,” comes the reluctant reply. Furiosa doesn't have to see to know he's licking his bottom lip.

Miss Walsh huffs a sigh. “You're new, so I'll forgive you this time. But you need to do your homework in order to keep up with the class. I expect it in tomorrow, as well as today's assignment. Is that understood?”

“Mm.”

Slit nudges his friend, points at Max and laughs. Furiosa sends him such a glare it's a wonder he doesn't combust on the spot.

He blows her a kiss. She thinks she might vomit.

Miss Walsh floats to the front of the class again and claps her hand. “Everyone should have read at least half the chapter by now. Let's discuss.”

*

Furiosa takes a deep breath of the oily garage air, hears Max next to her do the same, and they share a look of understanding. No more pointless talking about the dramatic lives of fictional characters. This is where they can both excel.

“You gonna dawdle there all day?” Ace growls; he's bent over a truck engine, wrench in one hand and a thick smear of black grease across his forehead. His thumb jabs over his shoulder at the coveralls hanging on the wall. “Move it.”

The garage is cold – Furiosa's hand bleaches white within minutes – but waist deep in engine parts is exactly where she needs to be. The sterile metal, the steady progression of tasks, it all helps give her a focus and clarity that silences all her spiralling thoughts.

And she's still surprised, after two shop classes and one panic attack, that working with Max is relaxing. They function well together. She has the slim fingers to fit into small spaces; he has the second hand to support when her prosthetic isn't enough.

The bell rings for lunch. Furiosa lost the hour again. A part of her is disconcerted – tracking time is how she's always coped – but mostly she feels accomplished. Proud. Especially when Ace swings by and nods his approval. Especially when he moves on to Slit and points out they've forgotten to connect the battery.

Max's eyes, when she turns to him, are crinkled at the edges. She feels her cheeks burn. “You've got –” He gestures to her forehead. She rubs the back of her hand there: it's smeared with black oil when she pulls it away.

They strip off their coveralls and hang them up. The sinks clear of students pretty damn quick, all of them caring more for food than hygiene. Furiosa scrubs her hands with petroleum jelly. The black fades by degrees until there are only thin lines in the creases of her knuckles. Max dries his hands on a rag, then scoops a finger's worth of jelly. He angles towards Furiosa, eyes flicking to her brow, questioning. Furiosa hesitates and then – nods.

The jelly is cold on her face. Max smears it across her whole forehead, left to right, rubbing in small circles with just the tips of his fingers. Furiosa watches Max on either side of his hand over her nose, his eyes narrowed and focused. Her heart thumps slow and steady as the ticking of a clock. Breath flutters warm out of her nose, deflects off his wrist and onto her chin.

There's that familiar leather smell, almost tangy on her tongue.

Max pulls his hand away, fingers shiny with jelly. His gaze drifts down to her eyes, but he's still looking _up_. For the first time, Furiosa realises she's taller than he is by a couple of inches.

Clearing his throat, Max steps back and reaches for a towel. He offers it to her with his clean hand. Furiosa shakes herself, grabs it and scrubs at her forehead til her skin feels raw. The bubble in her chest fizzes at the edges. Her ears are hyper-aware: the drip of the tap and the buzz of students in the hallway and Max pacing to their car, picking up their bags, waiting by the door.

Swallowing, Furiosa lays the towel aside. Her legs shake as she approaches the exit. Max passes her bag, looking somewhere near her left shoulder. He follows her into the river of students.

She should lead them to the lunch hall or the library. These are the designated spaces, the places where Slit can't do anything too outrageous and Furiosa won't attract attention from Principal James. She has spent the last two months desperately trying not to cause trouble. The last thing she wants is to jeopardise her place with Madi and Mel.

But – the hallways are jarring in their noise after the peace of the garage. Furiosa's stomach swoops as she grips the strap of her bag. When she glances at Max, he has flattened himself against the door, wild eyes darting up and down at the stream of jabbering students. He looks how she feels: raw and trapped and overwhelmed.

Furiosa thinks, quite clearly, _Fuck it_.

She marches with purpose through the crowd, keeps her head low and her strides long. She can hear Max's steady, heavy footfalls behind her. They reach the access door to the roof, and again it's unlocked. Furiosa ducks inside the stairwell. There's a breeze swirling down; she turns her face to it, feels it sting against the sore skin of her brow.

Max closes the door, cutting off the lunchtime babble.

Their boots thunk on the hollow wood of the stairwell. Daylight creeps down to meet them until they reach the roof door and emerge in the cool breeze of a spring day. It's overcast but the clouds are a stunning white after the gloom of the garage. Furiosa takes a deep breath of the clean wind and smiles.

*

The blood spatters might have been washed away, but Furiosa can still tell where Max pinned her to the ground. They sit as far from it as they can. The cold concrete eats through Furiosa's jeans when she sits, and she huddles into her wool sweater. Goosebumps still break out across the back of her neck in waves. One-handed, she reaches into her bag and pulls out the brown paper bag Madi left on the counter this morning. Max leans back against the wall, knees up, and closes his eyes.

“You're not eating?” Furiosa asks.

Max squints at her. “No lunch.”

She remembers the gnawing ache, the gurgling stomach, the weakness, the _pain_ of going hungry. Learning to eat again is worse.

Waving one half of her sandwich to Max, she stares him down until he takes it from her fingers. “It's just PBJ,” she says.

He devours it in two bites.

Furiosa's belly aches in sympathy. She finishes her half of the sandwich, then opens a packet of cookies and divides them equally between them under Max's widened eyes. He stuffs them in his mouth in one go, muffling a moan as he chews and swallows. The apple is a problem until Max procures a switchknife from his bag. She hands back the knife and half the apple.

“Why?” he asks.

Furiosa ducks her head, shrugging as she wipes her palm on her jeans. Days and days of hunger, chewing her lips, biting her fingers, curled around her belly rocking to try to alleviate the agony.

“Got to eat,” she says.

They are silent as Furiosa packs away her trash, washing down the food with swigs of her water. A little she uses to clean the sticky apple juice from her fingers. Then she shuffles to lean against the wall next to Max. It feels good to take the weight off her spine, to let her head thunk back and eyes close. Despite the breeze and the clouds, the daylight feels warm on her face.

“Never had bread before,” Max says suddenly. Furiosa cracks her eyelids just enough to see him. He is rubbing his belly with one broad hand, frowning. “Maybe – as a kid. I think. My mom –” And then his jaw snaps shut with a click of teeth.

Furiosa flicks the thumb of her prosthetic as she mulls over his words. “What did you eat instead?” she asks.

His jacket scuffs against the wall when he shrugs. “Canned stuff. I hunted a bit. Lizard. Snake.”

Tilting her head back, Furiosa considers the clouded sky. “No snakes here.”

“I'm from the desert. Mojave.”

No wonder he was always shivering from the cold.

“Your dad was from here though,” Furiosa says.

“Mm.”

“Your mom too?”

There is a length of silence. Furiosa counts it on the beat of her heart against her ribcage, flicks her plastic thumb in sync. “Seattle,” Max breathes out.

Her stomach shrivels and twists. “Me too.”

Max meets her eye, nods.

He doesn't ask. Furiosa is more grateful than she's comfortable with.

She clears her throat. “Could get started on homework.” Max grunts, not an actual word but unenthused nonetheless. Furiosa huffs. “It's gotta get done. Not worth getting in shit over it.”

With something close to a pout, Max hauls his duffel into his lap and begins to riffle through it. It's surprisingly organised inside – for a cloth sack – and Max is able to pull his school supplies off the top layer. The rest of the bag is full of _something_ ; Furiosa guesses it's the first aid kit, spare clothing, maybe stuff to mend his leather jacket. He's got duct tape on his boots strapping the heel in place, so there's probably a roll of it in there too. She already knows that Max is the type to prepare for every scenario: he probably _has_ got some canned food weighting down the bottom, just in case.

He places his bag to one side with more care than he gives his ratty copy of 'The Great Gatsby' on the ground next to him. Sighing – she had hoped he'd get his Algebra books out; she likes math better – she pulls her copy out too.

Just looking at Max's pained face when he squints at the tiny print is enough to make something sad twist inside Furiosa.

“Why don't I read?” she says. Blue eyes flick up at her and away again. He bites his lip while he thinks.

“Okay.” He rests his head against the wall, eyes shut and face turned up to the cloudy sky.

“And after, you show me how to break a chokehold.”

Max’s lips twitch minutely. “Okay.”

It’s too cold for the warmth tingling through her veins to be blamed on the weather. Smiling to herself, Furiosa picks up the book and begins: “ _‘About this time an ambitious young reporter from New York arrived one morning at Gatsby’s door …’_.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a peaceful lunch break, Furiosa can always rely on Slit to make the rest of the day a living hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning: abusive language that encourages rape and sexual violence** (Slit is an asshole). **Dissociation.**

Max held his pen in his fist like a first grader; his letters were all jumbled sizes as they meandered over the page; Furiosa could barely decipher some of the inventive spelling. But now those English worksheets have been stuffed inside his mouldy copy of the book, crammed into the top of his bulky duffel. The clouds are just beginning to break, warm yellow sunshine trickling through to shine on their upturned faces.

Flush with a sudden burst of energy, Furiosa hops to her feet. “Chokehold,” she says. Max, lips quirking, rises more sedately.

They stand opposite each other. This time, Furiosa doesn't have to be told to step within reaching distance.

“Hm, I'm gonna …” He gestures vaguely to her shoulders. At her nod, he lifts his hands and wraps then around her neck.

No pressure at all, but Furiosa is racked by a shudder. Instinct brings her arms up, body leaning back to try to escape it.

Max lets go.

Furiosa shakes herself, scowling. Already she knows this pattern, knows that she needs to fight her body's reactions in order to learn. “Okay, again.”

His hands settle around her neck once more, warm and dry and rough, thumbs resting just over her throat. She swallows hard against the rising clot of fear.

“Hm?” says Max – not a word, barely even a sound, but she understands and nods. “'kay. Lower your head – like this.” She copies him, digging her chin into his thick thumb knuckle. His hands loosen a degree. “Good. Grab my wrist – no, over the top. Yeah. Harder. Like a slap. Harder.”

Furiosa wonders if she's hurting him, but Max doesn't even flinch. When she slaps with all of her strength, his hand gives a little.

“Now punch me.”

Even if she were a normal person, punching off-handed would be tricky for Furiosa as she's a natural righty. But as it is, she lifts her left arm – the milky white plastic half-arm suctioned onto her limb has precious little mobility in its jointed wrist – and gives Max a sardonic look. “How,” is all she says.

Max doesn't even blink at it. “Hit the nose or the eyes. Shock's as good as pain.”

So she tries it, dubious but willing to believe him. His forehead makes a satisfying _smack_ against the palm of her prosthetic.

Eyes squinting, Max nods approvingly and steps back into position. “Can knee him too. Then run.”

“Okay,” Furiosa says. Graciously, she doesn't attempt it. “Let's do it.”

There are a lot of steps to remember, more than when he showed her how to get out of a bear hold. Whenever she makes a mistake, he stops and corrects her, just a scattering of instructions that her brain latches on to.

Her neck is overwarm, skin chafed raw by the drag of his calluses, but it doesn't matter when her blood is pulsing hard through her muscles and she feels full with knowledge.

“Do it faster. Like you mean it.” She meets his unsure gaze with more confidence than she truthfully feels. Max nods …

And launches.

The surprise jars her, throws her newly conditioned reflexes out. It takes a couple of seconds of wrestling his wrists before she remembers: tuck her head, slap one wrist down, twist and _smack_ and knee and knee and knee and free.

Five feet away, standing over the spot where he pinned her to the cold cement tiles, Furiosa pants hard while her heart thunders in her chest and grins. Her prosthesis has come off, and the air is cool against the moist skin of her stump. She dries it with the edge of her overlarge hoody before picking up the plastic hand and reattaching it; the suction isn't great – cheap prosthetic for a girl who'll age out of the system in not very long – but it's better than having people stare too close, when a quick glance at two hands is usually enough to pass their attention.

Max straightens from being doubled over, arms around his belly. His face is red but there are creases at the corners of his eyes which she's come to know means he is pleased.

Below them, the bell rings signalling the end of lunch. Furiosa's shoulders slump. She'd wanted to run the manoeuvre again.

“Can do it again. After school,” Max says as he slings his duffel over his back. He picks up her messenger bag and offers it to her. Brightened, Furiosa accepts it, flooding through with anticipation.

“Okay.” She leads the way to the stairs down, a bounce in her step and her muscles buzzing gleefully. Max is behind her – a _man_ is behind her, and it doesn't seem to matter at all.

She almost bashes her nose into the door when it doesn't move under her hand. In the dark, Max stumbles into her before he leaps back as if burned. Furiosa's flush of giddy energy snags on a flare of panic. She lets out a shaky breath and swallows her heart back down her throat.

“The door's stuck,” she whispers.

“Hm. Let me,” Max says. They shuffle awkwardly around each other and Furiosa can just see his outline from the daylight squeezing between the roof door and jamb. He shakes the handle, then puts his shoulder to the wood and shoves.

Nothing.

“Oh! I think I hear something!” That's Slit's voice from the hallway side of the door. Furiosa's stomach sinks down to her knees. Growling, Max rams it again. Slit laughs, loud and ugly. “Sounds like a couple having a _very_ good time!” Max wrenches the handle, then slams his palm against the door with a smack that makes Furiosa jump. “Fuck her good, wildman! You know she likes it!”

There are other people there, Furiosa can hear them: Warboys whooping and crowing, students sniggering to each other as they walk by.

“Don't go soft on me now, wildman!” Slit jeers. “One-armed bitch like that needs it rough. You gotta fuck her hard!”

Outright snarling now, Max throws his full weight against the door. The lock rattles but it doesn't give.

“That's my boy! Fuck her til she's crying!”

Furiosa goes cold, then white-hot. There's a ringing in her ears drowning out the Warboys' laughter, Max's feral growls, even her own heartbeat. Her blood is _fizzling_ in her veins; she can feel it spiralling inwards, twisting in on itself, a black clot of memory and electric anger, building and swelling until it fills her from head to toe, until she's shaking with the force of it.

“Fill her cunt! Go on wildman!”

“Wildman! Wildman!” the Warboys chant.

Furiosa shrieks.

She launches herself at the door, slamming into it, rebounding, slamming again, the inhuman rage ripping shrill and vengeful out of her throat. Max joins in, the two of them ramming the wood until with a sudden _CRACK_ it wrenches off the lock and swings open.

Slit stands amongst his football teammates with jaw dropped.

Furiosa sees red. Fingers hooked into claws, she runs straight for Slit. She wants to hurt him, she wants to make him suffer and bleed, she is going to scratch his _fucking eyes out_. Slit pinwheels back as she charges. Then, football reflexes fast as lightning, he's off like a shot. But Furiosa is in no mood to give up. Boots squeaking on the lino, she races after him. Dimly she's aware of Max straggling just behind her, the lopsided thump of his feet, a glance of his murderous face as they scream around a corner. But she's not focused on him. She can barely feel the agony of her thighs pumping or the bloom of pain in her shoulder.

All her attention is on the asshole tearing down the corridor, shoving students careening into lockers as he struggles through the post-lunch rush.

Another corner – Max stumbles, slams into the noticeboard – and there's Slit tugging frantically at the door to Ace's garage, glancing over his shoulder with eyes doubled in size when he sees Furiosa steaming towards him. There's nowhere for him to go, and they both know it.

Furiosa's vision is so narrowed, so pinpointed on Slit's rapidly paling face as she bulls down the last twenty feet of hallway, she doesn't notice anyone else. Not the students pressed up against the walls staring. Not the teachers hollering from the staffroom doorway.

Not Ace, stepping out of the men's room.

“Woah, woah!”

A body crashes into her, arms wrap tight around her torso from behind. Furiosa has clarity enough to think _Not again_ before tentative muscle memory sparks to life. Head snapping back, she drops to her knees and rams her elbow backwards as hard as she can, drives into soft belly flesh. There's a burst of hot breath against her neck. Then she skitters away, jeans skidding on the lino, heart in her throat and black spots dancing in her eyes. The lockers are hard and cold against her back.

The tardy bell rings right over her head, breaking the hazy muffled silence in her ears. Sound floods back: the students murmuring to each other along the edges of the hallway, Ace wheezing against the opposite wall, Max stumping towards her with a pronounced limp.

Furiosa blinks the colours back into her vision. Slit is long gone.

“Hey,” Max murmurs, crouching next to her with face pinched. He doesn't try to touch her, just waits for her eyes to drift up to his, wide and worried. “Hey.”

Quiet footsteps on the floor. “What's going on?” Principal James asks, perfectly calm. He looks from Furiosa and Max hunched together, to Ace holding a handkerchief to his nose that's rapidly soaking deep red.

Max stays quiet. So does Furiosa. Her thoughts are scattered a thousand different directions; she feels like she's drifting half out of her body, like the toes scrunching in her boots don't belong to her.

“'s okay, boss,” Ace says, muffled and thick. “Misunderstanding.”

James does not look convinced. In the pregnant pause where his assessing gaze sweeps the corridor, Furiosa struggles to get her mind straight. All her limbs are shaking, her teeth are chattering; her stomach has shrivelled into a hard lump.

She's dimly, horrifyingly aware that she just assaulted a faculty member, but her brain skips around the knowledge.

“Very well, if you're sure,” he says at length. Ace nods. “I'll leave it with you.” To the gathered student body, he raises his voice: “Class started five minutes ago. And if anyone sees Mr. Slitter, send him to my office.”

As the corridor empties, Furiosa focuses on breathing slow and steady like they taught her at the hospital. She feels cold as marble. Everything hurts: her lungs, her belly, her thighs, her shoulders, even the inch of skin and muscle above her ankles where her boots dug in while she ran.

When all has gone quiet, and her legs feel capable of supporting her, she struggles upright, leaning heavily against the wall at her back. Max stands beside her, head lowered and fists tapping against his jeans. Ace scans them over the top of his knuckles as he pinches his nose shut against the flow of blood.

He doesn't _look_ angry, but experience tells Furiosa that looks can be deceiving. A smile often came before a strike – or worse.

“You got a hard head,” he says. With one crooked finger he pokes at the bridge of his nose. “'s not broken though.” The bleeding seems to have stopped; when he pulls his handkerchief away, sopping wet, only a thin dribble of blood trails over his equally crooked mouth. He looks Furiosa directly, though her eyes scuttle away. “Coach'll be after you for this. Thinks his son is God's gift.”

Furiosa is still hovering somewhere over her own head, cold and detached. It takes some effort to understand Ace's words.

When neither she nor Max respond, Ace rumbles a sigh. “School's gotta punish you for threatenin' him.” Here he smiles; Furiosa remembers all those smiles on men's faces that she's seen, can feel there phantom hands on her crawling flesh. “You two got a choice: detention, or wrestling club,” he tells them, gruff.

Furiosa swallows thickly. Slit is in that club. “Wrestling. With him.” She's surprised by the sound of her voice: rough, wrecked, but toneless.

Ace pats a dry corner of his handkerchief at the red smear over his chin. “Gonna teach you to fight,” he says. “And if he tries anything ...” He gives a slow shrug and a smirk.

A headache ignites in Furiosa's temple. An extra hour forced in Slit's company – the thought makes her want to punch the wall. “Max is teaching me,” she says.

Ace gives Max the once over. “I can tell.” Max glares at him. “Don't matter. It's wrestling or detention.” He walks away, tossing over his shoulder, “Your choice.”

They are alone in the hallway. Furiosa counts seconds until she feels more or less inside her own skin again; it takes seven minutes.

Max rolls his shoulder and grunts, jaw clenching tight. Furiosa releases a ragged breath. She is utterly exhausted, like an engine sparking on bare fumes. She wants to curl up in her bed, under her blankets, and sleep until morning.

It's not her bed. They're not her blankets. She can't keep taking these _risks_.

“We have to get to class,” she murmurs.

“Why?”

She doesn't have the energy to explain. She just goes, one foot in front of the other, back up the corridor to collect her bag from the roof stairwell, and then to class. Slowly, Max's footsteps follow.

*

History is bad. History is Furiosa staring fixedly at the clock, counting up the seconds, counting up the minutes, accruing them in that space at the back of her mind. Max sits behind her in this class. Slit is normally at the front right under Mr Rhyl's nose, but his seat is empty. His blue-eyed friend looks lost without him.

Furiosa tunes out Mr Rhyl explaining Malcolm X's philosophy. There are more urgent thoughts swirling in her mind.

_Wrestling club._

_Detention._

_Slit._

A large vocal part of her is loathe to expose herself to more time with Slit than she's already forced to at school, and Wrestling club – an hour every week surrounded by most of the Warboys, with Slit their champion and leader – would probably be more than she could bear.

But if she goes to detention, that appears on her student record. What if that's enough to separate her from her sisters? Mel has already had to collect her from Max's farm, and they had that argument about Angharad. Furiosa's pushing her luck, and she knows it.

An hour extra with Slit. Bile burns the back of her throat just thinking about it.

Mr Rhyl is still waffling on about the Black Panthers. A few die-hard students are taking notes but most are, like Furiosa, staring at the blank wall behind him.

Wrestling club is run by Ace, not Slit's dad. He said he wanted to teach her how to fight. Furiosa casts her mind back to lunchtime on the roof – it feels like years have passed since then. She remembers the tranquillity she felt through that experience of power, the peace that came with defeating her attacker. The sensation has long gone, but she knows she felt it, like she knows she felt pain in her arm before it was amputated. She wants that back, wants the strength in her limbs and the rush of victory. Wrestling club, Ace teaching her – it's tempting.

When the bell rings, Max shuffles off to Chemistry while she makes her way to Biology. She barely acknowledges him passing, and receives a tight grunt in return.

The Sophomores are not subtle in their staring and whispering, despite Ms Smithers growling at them. Furiosa sits alone on her lab stool and bends her head over her textbook. One more hour. She can get through it. Just count the seconds and breathe. _Five. Ten. Fifteen seconds. Again._

*

Max meets her at her locker while she's collecting her coat. His head is low, broad shoulders rounded. He kicks his heel against the wall while he waits. Hissing whispers flutter around them. Her ears pick up the odd word. Someone says “bitch”. Someone says “wildman”. Someone says “fucking”. Furiosa closes her eyes and swallows.

Down the hallway, the Warboys jeer and laugh as they shove each other towards the changing rooms for football practice.

Books tucked into her bag, Furiosa closes the locker with a quiet click. The one underneath has a new, un-dented door, though Max has not been told to move his things back. His head swings towards her, eyes sweeping the mass of students as they flood past.

“Listen, Max,” Furiosa says, just as he's pushing off the wall. He turns back to face her, forehead creased. “I'm gonna sign up for Wrestling club.” His eyebrows launch upwards; he doesn't have to ask with words. “I can't get detention. I – I'm in enough trouble with my fosters.”

Max licks his lips. “What's detention?”

Furiosa stares, before she remembers: he's never been to school. “Um. You go sit in a room after school for an hour. You do homework.”

“Sounds okay,” Max says. His expression is dubious, like he knows he's missing some important aspect.

The energy it would take to explain it to him in a way he might understand is completely out of Furiosa's reach. Sighing, she rubs her forehead where a headache is brewing between her eyes, and hoists her bag over her shoulder. “I just can't,” she says, harsher than she means. A couple of students glance at them as they pass by. She softens her voice. “I'm joining Wrestling club. Do you want to?”

He shrugs, though under the armour of his wrecked jacket it is barely visible.

“Gonna miss the bus,” Max says. He slings his duffel over his shoulder

“Wait.” Again he stops, looks at her, something wary in his eyes. “I'm not coming back with you today. I'm gonna go straight home.” She's exhausted and bruised, and so anxious she might be sick. The last thing she needs is more trouble with Mel and Madi.

For a brief second, Max's face is open enough for her to see a flash of hurt. Then it walls off. He grunts an assent, readjusts his bag and stalks away.

Furiosa closes her eyes and leans her forehead against the cool metal locker. _Five seconds. Ten. Keep breathing._ The headache has swollen to pulse in both temples.

Nettie's bus is outside. Slit is at football practice. She is six miles away from an empty room, a soft bed, and her sisters – for whom she is putting up with all this crap.

One foot in front of the other. Legs rubbery and weak, she makes herself move.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Furiosa goes home, where Angharad is still pregnant with Joe's baby and that's still not okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings: reference of gunshot to the head; reference to abortion; reference to non-con.**

It feels like a lifetime has passed since Furiosa sat knee to knee with Max on the bus, bite of cold on her nose and bloom of warmth tingling under her skin.

Now the sun trickling through the windows has turned the air inside the bus cloying and damp. As the fields roll past in blotches of black-brown, she hunches into her coat, hood drawn up, slightly sweating but clammy and chilled. Her stomach hurts.

The furtive quiet of the other students makes Furiosa’s neck prickle. She wishes – with at least half the fervour she felt in the attic – that she wasn't alone.

One by one, the bus empties, until there is only her and Nettie swooping along empty country roads, and nothing to ease the Gordian knot of terror wrapped around her throat.

She headbutted a staff member in the face today. Nothing about that fact can change. There are no excuses, even if anyone knew what Slit was doing to her. She made a teacher bleed.

The punishment _will_ come. She can only hope …

_No._

Hope is pointless, and as the miles spin away her dread mounts to an all-body tremor. This is it. This is how it ends, the fuzzy dream she nurtured while locked away, of her and her sisters living a peaceful life away from torture and fear and blood.

The Greenhouse looms up on the right and Nettie eases the bus to a stop. Furiosa sucks in panicky breaths that roar loudly in her ears; her belly has cramped hard, her heart pounding. Everything is overbright, and she squints stinging eyes, unable to look away from the olive clapboard, the picket fence, the bare trellises awaiting summer's bloom.

Nettie's face peers around the cushy back of the driver's seat. Her blue eyes stab through Furiosa. "Where's your boy?"

Furiosa's brain buzzes blank.

"The new kid. Tarzan wannabe, 'til he lopped his hair off."

A face swims through the fog in Furiosa's head, shaggy matted brown hair and lake-blue eyes gleaming in a tan face.

"Max," she croaks. "You mean Max."

Nettie shrugs one shoulder. "Your boy."

Now the paralysis of fear has broken enough for speech, the rest of her body groans into action. Furiosa glances out the window again. She needs to go inside the house. Sitting here in the bus won't stop whatever is going to happen to her.

She can survive it. She just needs to keep breathing.

The messenger bag is beside her on the seat. Furiosa thinks through the actions before she executes them: grab the strap, lift it onto her shoulder, secure her feet under her, rise. Her knees tremble hard enough she reaches for the support of the next row.

Nettie watches. She doesn't say anything. The silence is more telling.

Furiosa's boots feel unaccountably heavy; they drag against the floor as she makes the long walk down the gangway. Nettie opens the doors. Furiosa pauses. "He's not mine."

Nettie frowns. "Hmm?"

But Furiosa is out of words, out of energy – and out of time. She thunks down the steps into the warming air, scented with dark earth and the hint of rain up in the hills. After a pause, the bus doors slap shut and the gearbox clunks into first. Furiosa can picture the fault in her mind, fingers itching for the cool calm quiet garage and her box of tools.

Nettie drives away, and with her goes Furiosa's last barrier.

 _Breathe. In. Out._ They may be shuddery sharp gasps that cut like broken glass, but her lungs obey the command. It takes four paces to get from the road to the gate. Twelve more to the porch steps, winding between empty flower beds and an industrious robin hunting for worms. Up three, then five creaking strides past the wooden bench where Madi sometimes folds the laundry.

The front door is closed and the inside curtain drawn over the window. All is quiet.

The doorknob sits there so casual. She can hardly believe that, for weeks now, she's just reached out and opened it with no hesitation, like she _deserves_ to be here.

Now it takes conscious effort to unclench her hand from her bag strap.

_It's gonna be locked, they've locked it, school called and told them you attacked Ace and now they've kicked you out. It's over._

The metal is smooth and cold under her trembling fingers. She grips it with some effort and twists.

It swings open. Furiosa gulps down bile.

Inside it's significantly warmer than the fresh spring air. Stepping in, a shiver cascades down Furiosa's back. She closes the door behind her.

"Hi." Angharad's voice drifts over from the couch by the fireplace, where she is curled up close with Capable. She has a book in her lap, angled so that they can both see. Neither of them look up at Furiosa's arrival.

Pausing to listen, Furiosa detects no sound in the kitchen, or upstairs. She licks her dry lips and tries for words. "Where's everyone?"

Her voice must seem normal enough, as neither of the girls react unusually. "Madi's picking up the others. Mel's meeting with a friend in Windy Valley."

Relief pours hot through Furiosa; her knees melt under her and she has to lean on one of the chairs at the dining table. "Oh."

Angharad glances up with a frown pinching her brows. She looks better today than she has in a while – skin glowing, eyes bright. "Are you alright?" she asks.

Furiosa forces her head to nod, her legs to take her weight, but can't bring even a twitch of a smile to her face. Still, it's enough to appease Angharad, who turns back to the book.

Probably still mad at Furiosa. They've barely spoken since her appointment in the city. Furiosa is sickly grateful now, slipping past the back of their chair to the stairs without further interaction. She's got time, a reprieve to collect her thoughts – she can't collect her things since none of it is hers – and try to find a way around this problem. She'll be asked to leave, no doubt about that, but maybe there's a way she can stay close. After all, she thinks as she climbs upwards, she reaches majority in less than a week ...

Angharad gasps, sharp and surprised. On the stairs, Furiosa whirls around, gripping the wooden banister for balance. Her boots thump loudly as she hurries back down. As she rounds the couch, Angharad's head is bowed, honey gold hair curtaining her face, hands pressed against the dome of her belly. Capable, book held aloft, shares an uneasy look with Furiosa.

"Angharad?" Furiosa murmurs, kneeling in front of her. It's the baby, she knows it is, Joe's seed inside Angharad poisoning her. Furiosa feels sick with the churning anxiety in her gut.

For a long moment, Angharad stays hunched over her bump. Furiosa makes plans: call the hospital, call Mel and Madi, pack a bag for Angharad ...

And then Angharad looks up, teeth gleaming through wide-stretched lips. It's so at odds with Furiosa's mindset that it takes her a second to comprehend Angharad is _smiling_.

"Wow," she says, eyes round. Her hand strokes firmly over her belly. "It's – He's _moving_."

Gasping, Capable presses her palms either side of Angharad's. There's a beat of silence – Furiosa counts it on the violent hammering of her heart – and then Capable is grinning too. She rests her head against Angharad's shoulder, eyes rapt on the three hands over Angharad's pale blue maternity shirt.

There is a baby inside Angharad's womb that is half-Joe, and it is _kicking her_ , and only Furiosa seems to realise how horrific that is.

"You have to feel this," Angharad says, breathless with excitement. She reaches out to guide Furiosa.

Furiosa yanks her hand out of reach, as if burned by the mere thought. At Angharad's hurt look she lurches to her feet, messenger bag slumping down her arm and almost knocking her prosthetic loose. Her whole body is buzzing but her face is numb; she doesn't know what expression she is wearing.

Angharad's scowl is a clue, though.

"It's just a baby," she says. "Come feel him."

Furiosa shakes her head so rapidly the room spins, a blur of polished wood and bottle green furnishings and knick-knacks on the walls. "No. I – no." She chokes on the words, on horror and bile crawling up her throat. Everything is wrong. Everything is wrong.

"It's just a baby," Angharad repeats, voice as soft and entreating as it had been through the attic door. Capable lifts her head, solemn-eyed.

Furiosa hoists her bag up to her shoulder and shakes her head again. Her cheeks are burning, teeth clenched and throat aching. "You should've got rid of it."

Immediately, Angharad wraps her arms around the swell of her belly as if Furiosa had threatened to rip the baby right out of her. She glares through her bangs. "It wasn't necessary. It's _just a baby_."

"It's a piece of _Joe_ ," Furiosa snarls back. She clenches her fist by her thigh to keep from lashing out.

"It's also a piece of _me_! What are you so afraid of?"

Furiosa could say that she's not afraid, and it would be both truth and lie. She's terrified, all the time, about everything: boys on the bus and the fall from her attic window and Mel and Madi talking out of earshot. But it's the guilt that eats at her like a parasite, bloating in her belly, that if she'd moved faster, tried harder, been less scared –

Too late to change anything now – not even Angharad's mind. The impotence blisters under her skin.

Still curled around Angharad, Capable stretches out her hand palm-up to Furiosa.

"Should've killed it," Furiosa chokes out, and rushes around the couch to the stairs, to distance and safety.

"Killing isn't necessary," Angharad shouts over the thud of Furiosa's boots, and the words shoot through her like bullets. For a second Furiosa stands upon a precipice, one foot on the final step, a storm of guilt and anger and fear roiling inside her ribcage.

And her left hand _screams_ with pain and all she can smell is the cloying iron tang of blood.

Capable hisses through her teeth, blue eyes flashing up to Furiosa frozen at the top of the stairs where she's half-twisted to stare at the back of Angharad's upright head.

The front door swings open and Toast tromps in, bookbag flinging sideways as she kicks off her shoes. Her face is long clean of the gore that had splattered her.

Furiosa swallows and retreats to the attic.

*

It's completely pointless, but Furiosa still sits at the wide windowsill and buries herself in Spanish conjugation and English comprehension questions and Biology readings. She spent ten minutes at first just flat on her bed with her face mashed in the pillow until black spots of asphyxia danced in her eyes. Then she heard Mel come home, the banter between her and Madi as they made dinner and helped Dag and Toast with their homework, and it drives Furiosa to her bag for her own assignments.

If she can make a good impression, if she can prove that she's learned, that she'll be good, maybe - _maybe they'll let me stay_.

Pointless to hope, yet here she is.

At six the shout comes up the stairs, "Dinner!" Furiosa almost ignores it – her gut is knotted and cramped, there's no way she can eat – but that won't make a good impression. It feels like those first couple of weeks trying to be unobtrusive, obedient, desperate. She's gotten too comfortable.

So down she goes, steps muted in her fluffy socks. At the dining table, laden with meatloaf and sides, she pastes on a smile and helps Toast pick the tomatoes out of her portion of the roast veg mix.

Dinner is awkward, or maybe that's just Furiosa, who can't help but catch Angharad's icy eyes over the sweet potato mash. Dag doesn't seem to notice, busy as she is building a meatloaf domino line; Cheedo squeals and claps when they fall down at the nudge of a fork.

"And how was school for you today?" Madi asks Furiosa, having worked through the five youngest, while Mel fetches cheesecake from the fridge. She's waylaid by the phone ringing.

Furiosa takes a long drink of water before she answers with a nonchalant shrug. "Fine." _No trouble at all, nothing has happened, I didn't nearly break my teacher's nose while trying to murder Slit, nothing is wrong and everything is fine._ Hysteria simmers at the corners of her mind.

"Madi? I need you," Mel calls from the kitchen, out of sight.

"Excuse me." Madi pats at her mouth with her napkin before she goes. Furiosa lets out a hissing breath; even counting down the minutes, this meal is excruciating. She doesn't know how long she can keep blandly smiling at everyone.

Capable throws her a nervous look.

On quick feet Madi flutters back through the door with the cheesecake in hand. She places it on the table, wipes her hands over her jeans, but doesn't take her seat. "Right, dig in. Angharad's in charge of knives." She catches Furiosa's eyes and jerks her head back to the kitchen. "Can we talk a moment?"

And the bottom drops out of Furiosa's stomach and lead pours into her legs and her ears are suddenly filled with a terribly buzzing noise because this is it. This is it. She knows who called and she knows what's going to happen now. As she creaks off the solid wooden chair, Furiosa tries to count seconds but her hitching breaths throw her off; all she can think is that she still doesn't have any possessions of her own, so she's no better off than when she first came here in the winter snows.

She follows Madi into the kitchen, with one last indulgent glance at her sisters negotiating cheesecake slice sizes.

The kitchen is more brightly lit than the other rooms; Furiosa squints as she steps into the cheery yellow space. Leaning with her back to the sink, Mel has one arm folded across her middle, unlit cigarette flicking in her other hand while she stares pensively at the lino.

Madi shuts the door behind them. Furiosa's throat clicks when she swallows.

"That was Principal James," Mel says without preamble. Her knees go, but Furiosa disguises it as a casual lean against the countertop. She tries to make her face look, if not innocent, then blank.

Moving to stand next to her wife, Madi frowns at Furiosa. "Something happened at school today," she says. Not a question.

There's no angle Furiosa can play on this. They know already. She bows her head and chooses silence.

"He says it was a misunderstanding. What happened?" Madi's voice is soft and wheedling, not unlike Angharad. It's no wonder they get on so well, spending all day together while Angharad and Capable homeschool.

In her mind, Furiosa replays the events in her head, trying to separate them into neatly deliverable stages. Slit locked her in the stairwell so she chased him through the hallways. After she broke the door to the place she'd been expressly told not to visit anymore. And then she headbutted a teacher because he was trying to stop her from assaulting a student. She was on the roof because ...

It's all muddled together, a smeared timeline of events, all revolving around Slit. To really put it into perspective, she'd have to go back to that first week at school, the moment Slit walked onto the bus and found himself a new toy.

"I didn't mean to," she says, and can't believe how thin her voice sounds to her own ears. She coughs, and forces more strength into her words. "Ace grabbed me and I panicked."

"Terry says you headbutted him and then elbowed him in the gut," Mel says. Of course she's on first name terms with the principal; Mel knows everyone, it seems.

"Where did you learn that?" Madi asks.

Biting her lip, Furiosa shuffles her feet so she's standing sideways to her foster mothers, can stare at Cheedo's preschool artwork pinned to the fridge. They no doubt know the answer already – she outright told Ace after his nose had stopped bleeding – so there's really no point in lying. Exhaustion sweeps through Furiosa so suddenly it leaves her light-headed. "Max," she murmurs, barely opening her mouth.

Mel and Madi share a look that Furiosa catches out the corner of her eye.

"Honey, do you think that's a good idea?" Madi asks. "After what he did to you?"

Furiosa studies her hand, the two empty nailbeds still swollen and raw, no sign yet of nail regrowth. It's only been four days since lockdown and the beating on the roof. It feels like much longer.

"Won't matter now, seeing as you're joining Wrestling," Mel says.

Madi clucks her tongue against her teeth. "That's – aggressive."

"She signed up for it."

The weight of both their stares threatens to sink Furiosa to her knees. Then, Mel asks the question that Furiosa has been dreading most.

"What's going on with the coach's son?"

Furiosa stares hard at a fingerpainting in riotous purple and green.

_His leering face makes me want to puke. Every time he speaks it's to say something sexual. I want to scream any time he is near. Sitting on the bus with him is like being in the attic again, with the door opening and some strange man invading my space._

But she can't. She can't say anything. They don't know, so there's still a chance Furiosa can save this, can stay here with her sisters where she can protect them. She won't let Slit jeapardise the safety of her family. And revealing it all would be like kicking the hornet's nest.

Furiosa can stand a few stings. She's experienced much, much worse.

"Nothing," she whispers.

After a moment, Madi sighs, and Mel reaches into her cardigan pocket for her lighter. "Going for a smoke," she grunts, and heads out the back door.

Furiosa licks her lips and thinks of her own pack upstairs. She might need to chain smoke about fifty to restore her equilibrium.

"You can't –" Madi starts, then stops. There is a deep crevice between her brows, and her mouth is a downturned slash. "Terry James is doing all he can for you," she says haltingly, "but there's only so much he can ignore. Just – try to be good, Furiosa. Please."

Somewhere deep inside her, Furiosa starts screaming.

"Sure," she says. "I'll try."

*

It's cold again outside. Blowing smoke out of her nose, Furiosa pulls her hood up to warm her ears and the chilled back of her neck. She doesn't miss her long hair at all – far too many memories attached – but short hair also has its drawbacks.

She stubs her cigarette out in the ashtray Mel snuck her, pulls another from the carton and lights it. Only three left. She'll need to ask for more.

Or maybe she should quit. She only started as an act of rebellion against a man whose brains she splattered against the wall. What use is there in continuing to smoke now?

But what use is there in stopping? Her entire life has just been a series of days rolling one into the other, waiting for an opportunity that doesn't seem like it'll ever arrive. Two years in the attic. Weeks at hospital. Months here. Dawn and dusk and nightmares in the day and nightmares in the dark and what's the fucking point? She got rid of Joe – the gun heavy in her hand and the trigger firm under her finger and the solid kick and his head exploding – but now there's Slit.

And it's not the same. It's not. She isn't tied to a bed and locked away to be used at will by anonymous men.

She could walk away.

But then there's Angharad and Capable, Cheedo and Dag, Toast. Five reasons that broke her arm in a suicidal escape. Five reasons that dragged her across the state without a dollar to her name. Five reasons to get up in the morning.

Furiosa stubs out her cigarette half smoked and broods in the blushing indigo evening.

Across the field tramps a silhouette, working its way steadily closer.

For a brief second she debates shimmying out the window to meet him, walk with him back to the Rockatansky farm, to the open fire and bad coffee and the silent sentinel of tractors.

No. She said she would try to be good. For five reasons, she _must_.

Furiosa closes the window, and goes back to her homework.

**Author's Note:**

> Come join me on Tumblr for more [Mad Max mayhem](http://fadagaski.tumblr.com/).


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